THE 
CHILDREN'S HEALT 




FLORENCE HULL WINTERBURN 




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THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 



PARENTS' LIBRARY 

By FLORENCE HULL WINTERBURN 



NURSERY ETHICS 

tamo, cloth S 1 - 00 

FROM THE CHILD'S STANDPOINT 

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THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

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In Preparation. 
INDIVIDUAL EDUCATION 
PREPARATION FOR PARENTHOOD 




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THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 



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FLORENCE HULL WINTERBURN 



NEW YORK 

THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO, 

33-37 East Seventeenth Street 
Union Square, North 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Conea Received 

OCT. 17 1901 

CLASS <^XXa No 
COPY 3. j 






Copyright, 1901, 

BY 

THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 



ROBERT DRUMMOND, PRINTER, HEW YORK. 



TO 

DOCTOR BYRON G. CLARKE 

IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

OF MANY KINDNESSES 



PREFACE 



There are now in existence so many excellent 
treatises upon health and hygiene that I have had 
great difficulty in persuading myself to add an- 
other to the number. But during my studies 
along the line of mental development, I have 
realized the need of some volume dealing with the 
general principles of health, rather than with dis- 
ease and its treatment. 

So far as I know, no one has yet endeavored to 
supply the need of mothers for a simple little 
manual containing the laws of health as based 
upon evolution, and giving broad outlines instead 
of pet theories of the authors. 

Urged to this task by my unresting solicitude 
for childhood, I have brought my best energies to 
bear upon a task which is not the least important 
of the volumes belonging to The Parents' Library. 
It is far from being the complete and satisfactory 
5 



PREFACE 

treatise I should have liked to make it. But at 
least the suggestions here offered are truths sus- 
tained by science and countenanced by philosophy. 
I have tried to make a book which should, in a way, 
stand as a medium and interpreter between child 
nature and the great mother Nature whose laws 
we are so inclined to neglect. And I trust that it 
may be helpful to inexperienced parents and wel- 
come to all those who appreciate any effort, how- 
ever small, that is made for the children's sake. 

F. H. W. 

New York, Sept. i, 1901. 
6 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGB 

The Health Demanded by Modern Life 9 



CHAPTER II 
The Child and his Atmosphere 31 

CHAPTER III 
Educating the Nerves 60 

CHAPTER IV 

Nature's Sweet Restorer 87 

CHAPTER V 

Nutriment and Growth 114 

CHAPTER VI 

The Relation of Grace to Health 139 

7 



CONTENTS 
CHAPTER VII 

PAGE 

Vocal Expression 171 

CHAPTER VIII 

Culture of the Emotions 199 

CHAPTER IX 
Defective Children 231 

CHAPTER X 

Recreations and Social Life 258 

8 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 



CHAPTER I 

THE HEALTH DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE 

"Times modify forms. The world of thought moves fast; what 
is good for one time may ill suit another. The culture of past ages 
is stealing into our present thought, deepening and widening it." — 
Bronston Alcott. 

Between the new-born infant whose cry may 
be a protest against the life forced upon him, and 
the world about to close around him, stand the 
guardians of his cradle, ready, like court chamber- 
lains, to introduce the stranger and coach him for 
his part. It were well if these authorities were 
thoroughly imbued with a sense of their responsi- 
ble position, and performed their duties with some 
intelligence, instead of mechanically and awk- 
wardly, as they must unless they not only know 
what to do, but realize why it is done. 
9 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

That frail young life of which they now take 
charge has been gradually gathering in the strange 
seclusion of the mother nurture, strength enough 
to essay the next step onward toward individual 
existence. It begins to breathe the outer air. But 
what a harsh contrast the atmosphere of our earth 
offers to the shelter nature formerly afforded it! 
The tenderest zephyr of June is icy, and from the 
shock the little being encounters in its introduc- 
tion to our world proceeds the first sensation ex- 
perienced, and what is called the temperature- 
sense takes the place of honor in the little human 
brain. 

There is no doubt that this tiny entity, always 
hitherto warm, suffers appreciably from the change 
to cool air. But the change is only one of the 
many that are inevitably awaiting. What can we 
do? " Life is full of suffering, and the baby must 
become accustomed to endure." Our ready phi- 
losophy fills up the chinks left by the adult habit 
of almost brutal indifference to discomforts for- 
gotten and overlived. 

Nothing is more difficult than entire sympathy 
with suffering similar to our own, except sym- 
pathy with what we have not personally experi- 
enced. To feel for others is a sentiment that is 
comparatively modern and is not yet largely de- 



HEALTH DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE 

veloped even in the most gentle souls. And if it 
requires an effort to comprehend what is passing 
in the lives of people who are our equals and 
peers, and who are capable of fluent explanation, 
what heroic self-forgetfulness and powerful imag- 
ination must inspire one bent upon investigating 
the drama of that inner life hidden under the 
puerile, uninviting exterior of a wrinkled baby 
face. 

We have adopted a phrase to express our in- 
difference of the child-soul, and to justify our lack 
of care for its early development. We call babies, 
nay, even young children of six and ten, " little 
animals." It is an assumption betraying frightful 
egotism upon our part, and out of this disposition 
to treat children from the physical standpoint, 
and to build up the structure of their intellectual 
and moral education on a brute basis, some curi- 
ous consequences arise. Many inconsistencies be- 
tween the ordinary practices of society and the 
high ideal of its professed religion may be ex- 
plained by retracing, step by step, the life and 
training of some of its adult members. The blight, 
the disease of the most enlightened communities 
is — indifference of heart: profound, radical lack of 
feeling which makes a temporary wave of senti- 
ment, aroused by some magnetic, enthusiastic out- 
ii 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

burst of eloquence, quickly subside into apathy 
and mortification over our want of stoicism. 

The ideal we bow to is human benevolence to- 
ward our fellows, but the ideal we hug in our 
bosoms and obey is hardness, wary aloofness from 
what may exact deprivation. Rising from its 
knees, and swarming from the oppressive atmos- 
phere of worship to the congenial breeze of world- 
liness that meets it at the door, the congregation 
of the church emerges, discussing the fine sermon 
and a cautious barter of civilities with an eligible 
acquaintance in the same breath. In moments of 
self-examination we incline to wonder at ourselves, 
and ask why it is that we are incapable of the true 
love for our fellow creatures which we candidly 
acknowledge is the core and kernel of Christian 
virtue. 

Then, does it never occur to us that the reason 
for the hard heart of the adult may lie in the ossi- 
fication of the heart of infancy? From the day of 
its birth we train our child in the endurance of 
cruelty; and then ask why, when he is grown, he 
should contemplate with perfect equanimity all 
the numerous acts of cruelty enacting in the world, 
and pursue his selfish interests with cool disregard 
of the wishes and needs of others. But we ought 
not to ask. We ought to know that the child 



HEALTH DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE 

who has been considered a " little animal," and 
reared as an animal, will be an animal, in human 
form, when he reaches maturity. Sudden trans- 
formations in character do not occur. If we wish 
to bring forth the result of the perfect flower of 
fine civilization in our child, we must begin, when 
he makes his appearance on our earth, to treat 
him as a tender blossom, and not as a tough weed. 
If we aim to secure for him the gift of perfect 
health, of that harmonious poise between mind and 
body which will make living a joy, we must not 
treat his body as a thing to be developed by itself 
for a period, as if mind was something which 
could jump into its frame when we choose to call 
for it, but recognize the claim of his whole per- 
sonality, seeing, through the veil of that appar- 
ently stupid and insensate outer self, the delicate 
buds of sensation and emotion, alive and quiver- 
ing so long — often so very long — before we find 
proper to regard him as a human being. 

Accrediting him, then, with at least the germs 
of sensations, and a potentiality of suffering, let 
us not make our welcome of the new-born infant 
rough. Let us receive him tenderly, and hasten 
to give him the nearest likeness to the atmos- 
phere he craves, which it is in our power to 
furnish. 

13 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

I think the care of young infants is a matter 
that receives more attention from the medical pro- 
fession now than ever before. And the sisterhood 
of trained nurses— that blessing of modern life- 
smoothes many a briar from the baby's path. But 
few, even among tender mothers, have brought to 
bear upon it that broad consideration of the en- 
tire subject which sweeps all details under the 
reign of a general law and recognizes beyond the 
immediate needs of the moment the great end in 
view. The object of all the care and attention 
we must bestow on our helpless little one is not 
that he may merely be fed when he hungers and 
put to sleep when he is weary. These are the de- 
tails, the trifles that should be carefully considered 
as we consider the stitches in a beautiful piece of 
embroidery, the pattern of which we view with 
pleasure from time to time as we work, thinking 
how fair the result will be when we have done. 
But the motive that impels our regard to the de- 
tails is to secure the permanent, the entire wel- 
fare of the child. We wish him to grow strong 
and beautiful; to become serene, cheerful and 
happy. Back of the care with which we secure 
for him pure air, proper food, a clean skin, suffi- 
cient sleep, is the aim of developing a completely 
good physique, and, incidentally, that good dispo- 



HEALTH DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE 

sition which shall make the best of life and turn it 
to a useful purpose. 

Now, let us bring out from its obscure lurking 
place in our minds this after-consideration. It is 
not a thing to be simply glanced at in a casual 
way. It is the thing of chief importance; the All 
of education and of life. 

Health is accord between all the forces and 
potentialities of our nature. It is harmony be- 
tween the separate factors constituting our entire 
self, and between ourself and our outer surround- 
ings. That person is well who fits perfectly into 
the circumstances of his life, and performs with 
enjoyment all his appointed functions. We still — 
even in this progressive, scientific period — speak 
of disease as if it was wholly an affair of the body. 
But the body and the mind are inseparable, and 
the nomenclature of the one may always be trans- 
lated into that of the other if we have the honesty 
and accuracy to make our statements coincide 
with facts. Happiness and health are as com- 
pletely interchangeable terms as skies and heavens. 
The one is the outward symbol of the inward feel- 
ing. If a man is ill when he has a fever, so also 
is he ill when he is discontented and uneasy. The 
emotional woman, living in the smiles of her 
favorites, and shrinking under their frowns, is ill; 
i5 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

even to the same degree as her sister, who is per- 
ishing of asthma. She is fighting ineffectually for 
elements not contained in her moral atmosphere, 
just as the other invalid fights for oxygen. The 
little one writhing on the floor of his luxurious 
nursery in a rage incomprehensible to his indul- 
gent parents, is ill, with a systemic derangement 
that in his more unstable constitution may soon 
show itself as a physical malady. But the true 
malady is a wound to the mind, a blow upon his 
feelings, some frightful disappointment in the na- 
ture of the persons or the objects that make his 
world. He is not more seriously indisposed when 
he has a fit of indigestion, or the measles. But 
while in the latter case we know what is the mat- 
ter and apply remedies, in the former we minimize 
the trouble and seldom deal with it intelligently. 

We are half-cured of a sickness when we know 
what caused it; for then our mind is cleared of the 
delusion which made us bring it upon ourselves. 
There are thousands of causes for human disor- 
ders too subtle to be recognized by the thought- 
less, too far-reaching to be seized by the bigot. 
The person under the influence of a " fad " sees 
his single idea everywhere, and can see nothing 
else. Fixed ideas are a form of madness which we 
see most frequently in those whose hobby is 
16 



HEALTH DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE 

health. But if we would understand what health 
really is, and how to achieve it, we must away with 
" fads," with delusions and hobbies, with all one- 
sided views and inspired theories; we must be 
sane, and, in the breadth of view given to the sane, 
look at the subject in all its human, its world-wide, 
its universal relations. 

Why can we not bear constantly in mind that 
we are not separated, single individuals, but beings 
linked with all the material and immaterial forces 
of existence; with the physical forces of electricity, 
heat, cold, gravity, in even such small manifesta- 
tions as the rumble of the machinery which 
smites our ears as we walk along the street. 
The power back of that noise is our brother; 
one that is able to penetrate into the deep con- 
sciousness of our being and stir in us the feel- 
ings of pleasure or pain. And not less are we 
linked with all the social processes of civilization; 
with the factors of trade, the march of war, the 
tides of science and the arts. All of them vibrate 
in our hearts and start flowing in our veins the 
currents of dislike and despair, or of approval and 
content; in other words, of disease or of health. 
The past has power over us, for tendrils stretch 
back from the present hour into the depths of 
memory, and may cause an aching, like a tooth's 
17 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

nerve. The present enslaves us, but some poten- 
tiality of the future, speaking to us through our 
imagination, beckons us onward toward freedom, 
and a nobler life. 

Our total environment, then, is but another self; 
unknown, but felt. And true health is harmony 
between all this universal self and the small per- 
sonality that stands in our shoes and looks back 
at us from our mirror. What short-sighted folly 
to think that, by keeping what we know as our 
own body in pretty good order, we keep well. A 
single shock from one of the great relative forces 
outside knocks us prostrate, and under the grip 
of some ailment we slowly fight our way, in seclu- 
sion and in that determined ignoring of our en- 
vironment which we term " rest," back to the 
status from which we have stumbled. To be 
thrown again — how soon? 

To be well, what must we do? Either harmonize 
with our environment or compel our environment, 
the whole of it — our world and all the worlds 
that are part even of our dreams — to harmonize 
with us. Alexander and Napoleon undertook the 
latter, and died in despair. It would seem a simpler 
task to bring our own little selves into a state of 
harmony with our conditions. And yet, this very 
simple task has never yet been completely accom- 
18 



HEALTH DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE 

plished by mortal man. It remains as the goal, 
the ideal to which we may look, and toward which 
we may bend our steps; scarcely hoping to attain, 
for any generation we may consciously influence, 
a boon so inestimably precious. But a very prac- 
tical good will follow our efforts; we shall obtain 
for ourselves blessed moments of happiness, lucid 
intervals in the great insanity of disease which 
possesses us; and secure for our children a hold 
upon the treasure which shall perhaps make their 
posterity wealthy. 

The rational prelude to every work is an under- 
standing of the end in view. Many of our efforts 
fail from lack of this knowledge. We ordinarily 
get only a portion of what we really want because 
our gaze was diverted from its distant purpose. 
And I think it. well, at the risk of being tempor- 
arily called an idealist, to draw attention to the 
great truth so often overlooked: that health is har- 
mony, disease discord; and that as to effect har- 
mony in musical sounds there must be one dom- 
inating strain, perceived and deferred to by all the 
lesser notes which waver about it, so, in the 
sound sane state we term health, there must be, 
as a recognized leader, the one most characteristic, 
persistent trait of the individual, and every condi- 
tion of his life must be considered in reference to 
19 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

it. The primary need of his nature is the key-note, 
and unless he lives up to it there will never come 
to him the joy of complete existence. He will be 
dwarfed, misshapen, diseased. But, unless it takes 
an early start, our strongest instinct may be baf- 
fled and outrun by other impulses. Even before 
we have begun to live we may be half dead; 
maimed in the nursery. Our mothers are our 
fate. If they are imbecile, alas for our happiness. 

But is it possible for a parent to see in the 
blinking infant lying in its cradle, any sign of per- 
manent character, any fore-shadowing of the des- 
tiny to which it is called, so that she can labor to 
educate her offspring in accord with its end? How 
absurd to exact of a mother a prescience that is 
superhuman. No one, however gifted with in- 
sight, can penetrate for an instant the mysterious 
veil that shrouds the pensonality of a feeble, in- 
significant infant. All our great responsibility 
ends in nothing then, and our great task is a 
chimera of fancy. 

True. From this point of view. But it is the 
narrow one, the one which again considers the in- 
dividual as an isolated factor in the world, and 
looks to find in him traits distinct and unlike those 
of his fellows. Such traits are, indeed, continually 
appearing, but they are idiosyncrasies, variations 
20 



HEALTH DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE 

from the sure and definite course of human de- 
velopment, and they are to be wrought out by 
their possessor, not by his educators. And here 
is where we often make our fatal mistake; in tak- 
ing particular account of the whimsies of the 
child, flattering his oddities, and founding upon 
the indication of some momentary preference of 
his, the habits of his nurture. If we were suffi- 
ciently self-possessed to distinguish between the 
transient, fitful impulses of personality and the 
permanent, inalienable instincts of humanity, we 
should firmly carry out a method of education 
agreeing with that course which nature has pur- 
sued with living organisms from the least to the 
greatest. This is to develop, first and principally, 
the common character of the creature in question, 
that which belongs to his species and race, and 
afterwards those special tendencies he has in- 
herited from his family. Thinking first of his wel- 
fare as a human being born into society, we should 
mould him into the general, the universal shape, 
thus adapting him to the world he has entered. 
Afterwards, may properly be unfolded the particu- 
lar aptitudes essential for the niche in it which he 
will probably occupy. 

Different careers demand different kinds and 
degrees of strength. The porter and the student 

21 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

are not built up of the same materials, nor are the 
artist and the soldier. But there are yet some few 
features essential to them all, some elemental 
principles of life which must be preserved and 
quickened before they can become men. What 
are they? Sound limbs, good circulation of the 
blood — yes, but also, a quality less often thought 
about, yet as positive, as necessary as these. The 
person who attains to complete health has within 
him a natural correspondence with this planet upon 
which his lot is cast, and with the period during 
which his career is to run. If the strongest ten- 
dencies of his character are retrograde, if he is 
drawn backward in desires and habits to an 
earlier, cruder period of the world's history, or 
downward, toward that lower order of nature's 
children from which, in the course of evolution, he 
has proceeded, then he is out of place in his world, 
out of joint with his times; and instead of being 
healthy, diseased to the innermost core of his 
being. 

" Times " is but another name for the accumu- 
lated effects of all the numerous processes enact- 
ing in obedience to a single motive: the motive 
that passes from nature's processional mood to 
the hearts of men, and makes their lives a progres- 
sive march toward perfection. A deep responsi- 
22 



HEALTH DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE 

bility comes to light and life with the births occur- 
ring every moment, that the new-born shall enter 
the world physically, morally, and mentally up to 
his hour, and able to press onward joyously toward 
the future, borne on the current of its great ideals. 
The past had its duties and its peculiar relations; 
ages ago man was of necessity nearer akin to the 
animals; he was in harmony with his conditions 
and his period when he was a good animal, fulfill- 
ing the suggestions of his young conscience, and 
infringing none of the laws of his caste. But what 
was perfection then is detestable to-day. Our 
standards have advanced, and the person who 
moves in modern society obedient to the primi- 
tive instincts of self-assertion and the rule of 
might over right, is an anachronism. I do not say 
that anachronisms are not plentiful. 

Let us scrutinize the demagogue, however; the 
keen speculator, the leader and user of others, 
commercially, politically or socially. In his hours 
of defeat he is the most miserable being upon 
the earth, the most misanthropical and feeble. 
When successful, is he well, is he happy? Where 
is the light in the eye, the glow upon the cheek, 
the joyous, confident bearing of the one who 
knows that he is in unison with whatever is good 
and true and sound? The nearest approach to an 
23 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

ideal condition of health is sometimes met with in 
the sham philanthropists; men with the ruddy 
cheeks and innocent eyes of childhood, who have 
somehow got themselves into a state of delusion 
concerning their own characters and enact the 
part of villains under the mien of saints. But ef- 
fect the miracle of making one of these bloated 
sinners see himself as he really is, and he shrinks 
and trembles with a moral and physical ague. Be- 
cause the whole prop of his life is a hold upon 
the vital principle that underlies human society 
now, after its tour through the dark, rugged 
paths of primitive existence. He realized that 
there is a core of goodness at the center of the 
earth, slowly making its way to the surface; that 
the trend of all life upon our planet is upward, 
and the true, the good and the beautiful are na- 
ture's own ideal. 

Poor, inspired idiot, how excellent he might 
have been but for his incurable greed, which would 
have all, the great end and the petty meanwhile; 
the boon of perfected human life and the animal 
pleasures in the mire. 

There are others who have partly grasped the 

great true principle, and whose failure is scarcely 

less decided, though not so contemptible. All 

those who, having come to believe that the reign 

24 



HEALTH DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE 

of cruelty belongs to an older stage of the world's 
history, and the reign of human feeling has be- 
gun, would yet, in their diseased enthusiasm, 
cruelly force love upon the world. These are the 
legions of bigoted saints in religious circles and 
in scientific circles, and in no circles at all, but on 
the pinnacle of their own genius, like Carlyle and 
Milton, exhausting their own vital flame in kind- 
ling the fires of intolerance. 

Who, in all the crowd of enlightened societies of 
our period, have the firmest hold upon that secret 
which nature has as yet but partly revealed to her 
wisest offspring? I think not the latter-day physi- 
cal athletes who plume themselves upon their 
materiality; not the male sports and self-centered 
women " building up " by courses of golfing, bi- 
cycling, massage and gymnastics. There is good 
in all these things, but not enough. Unless men- 
tal and moral culture are pursued pari passu with 
physical culture, we are merely developing a fine 
animal ; and again, I say, that is not the ideal that 
belongs to the period. We shall not attain to 
complete health until we read into our everyday 
life and practice the " signs of the times," the les- 
son of the present with its hint and preparation 
for a yet better future. 

Here and there I have met a man and a woman 
25 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

who are manifestly favorites of nature; who com- 
bine sound bodies with a mental serenity full of 
lofty purpose and practical performance. Their 
personalities are like glowing bits of color on the 
sober canvas of the average world. They are well, 
they are happy, they are good. 

We need not curl the lip of scorn at the old 
maxim, as if it was only fit for children: " Be good 
and you'll be happy." It is forever false in a way, 
yet forever true. As surely as we all believe, in our 
inmost hearts, that there is a sustaining principle 
of goodness latent in the universe, so we must 
recognize that nature moulds into flesh the con- 
tinually increased exactions of our moral sense. 
And in order to become a symmetrical, healthy 
personality, one must live upward, beginning in 
childhood and carrying forward without break or 
backslide the ideals of the age he is born into, 
so that he may have every hour of his life the 
peace that only comes from feeling that he is in 
harmony with that high principle upon which all 
life depends. 

I am aware of here putting into another form 
an ethical principle which has been made the 
corner-stone of most of the modern religions. 
From Buddhism to Christian Science the ideal of 
" Abandonment to the Divine Will " has been 
26 



HEALTH DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE 

preached to disciples: in other words, of abandon- 
ment to the best and purest revelation of the age; 
of the conscience developed in the breasts of the 
most devoted and lofty-minded men to which the 
special period gives birth. But slow and long has 
been the course of progress from the ideals of 
savagery to those of enlightened humanity. The 
god of Calvinism was a god of cruelty and aggres- 
sion, stamping out human happiness as a noxious 
weed in his field of self-glorification. So long as 
men believed egoism in every form the perfection 
of morality, despotism was their ideal, and they 
took a fierce joy in being trampled by their deity 
even as they loved to trample their fellows. But 
the happiness and health visiting the breasts of 
our stern, bigoted forefathers, in their moments 
of rapt contemplation of Something beyond and 
above them, fought and wrestled with the advanc- 
ing ideal of a wiser, finer age, and they were, for 
the most part, in the habit of considering pleasure 
a sin only permissible in heaven. Very curiously, 
sweating laborers in despotical countries believe 
that enjoyment belongs to the court. 

But the leaven of progress crept through the 

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and is plainly 

manifest now, in thousands of bubbling aspirations 

and ideas throughout the enlightened world. We 

27 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

dare to retranslate the old formula, " Abandon- 
ment to the Divine Will," into confidence in all-per- 
vading Goodness. The reign of bigotry and cruelty 
is in its decadence; that of true humanity, of toler- 
ance, of sympathy, is in sight. The ideal of our 
age is that of an unselfish life. The revised creed 
of our faith is blazoned with the practical precepts 
of helpfulness to others, and a sane, sound, sym- 
metrical development of all the faculties of our 
threefold nature. Not in physical strength alone 
— which is brutality; nor in spirituality alone, 
which is bigotry — is man to find his regeneration; 
but in that action which consists in physical obedi- 
ence to the higher impulses of his mind. The re- 
ligion of humanity, the philosophy of health, 
twin stars that light the path of our new century, 
are visible to the thinker and the practical worker, 
now. Who voluntarily wills to be diseased, who 
does not passionately rebel against illness and 
claim complete health as his birthright? If we en- 
tered into life maimed and enfeebled, we blame 
somebody or something for our condition; and 
justly. We had the right to be born sound, 
to begin life in accord with our environment, 
and to be so imbued, in our early years, with the 
highest principles of our age that we could keep 

well. 

28 



HEALTH DEMANDED BY MODERN LIFE 

If we were compelled to carry on a struggle be- 
tween mind and body, conscience and practice, 
during our own early years, and only attained to 
a saving knowledge through hard experience, let 
us stretch out a protecting hand over the little 
ones lying helpless in their cradles. Let us recog- 
nize their right, as children of the twentieth cen- 
tury, to the rule of kindness and consideration; to 
their immediate entrance, without the preliminary 
of a period of animal life, into the environment of 
an enlightened humanity. 

The infant is not a stone; the young child is 
not a thing; they feel, they realize, they suffer, 
they are able to enjoy. How much, we do not 
know. But let us be cautious of certifying how 
little. Their lives, their health of the present and 
of the future, are in our hands, and we should not 
enter upon a task so difficult, a responsibility so 
deep, without qualifying ourselves to discharge 
our full duty. To knowledge of all the little de- 
tails of hygiene of the nursery must be joined the 
deeper, riper knowledge of the relations of the 
child with his world and his age. We must de- 
velop him in accordance with the moving prin- 
ciple of his times. We must bend our efforts to 
unfold in him that prime need of his nature which 
he shares with his human contemporaries; that 
29 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

general character which precedes in importance 
his particular character as an individual. 

Our medical lights cf old said waggishly, 
" First, make of the child a good animal "; a say- 
ing true to the thoughts of a ruder age. But now 
our aim shall be to make our child first a good 
human being; later on, his individuality will unfold 
itself in correspondence with the tendencies he in- 
herits from his parents, and he will enter upon the 
personal management of his life. 

So much depends upon the right start, upon the 
wise governing of the habits of infancy, that 1 
think we have not been visionary in trying to ar- 
rive at a comprehension of the scope and bent of 
the life of a human being of our century, before 
going on to considerations less abstract, although 
not less intimately related to the subjects usually 
embraced under the term health. 
3° 



CHAPTER II 
THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

' ' The soft, blue sky of June, and the cool air 
That makes it then a luxury to live, 
Only to breathe it, and the busy echo 
Of cascades, and the voice of mountain brooks, 
Stole with such gentle meanings to my heart 
That where I stood seem'd heaven." — Percival. 

Our child, then, is born into a world which is 
ever growing better; where the conditions are 
tending more and more toward gentleness and re- 
finement. Whether he will be able to take his for- 
tune at the flood depends upon the judgment we 
now exercise. We key this young soul to the 
melody it is to execute through life. 

Our duty is to give him at this first moment 
the best that it is in us to give, so that he may 
begin life at our highest moral point and progress 
forward. Gentleness, consideration, wise adapta- 
bility of all alterable conditions to his need, are his 
due. He is absolutely helpless, possessing but one 
strong faculty, the power of protest against what 
31 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

hurts him; a power so quick to grow that if it is 
often called out that feeble yell which at first 
alarms nobody may become formidable. 

We are commonly careless of provoking this 
disaffection in the new-comer's breast, not calcu- 
lating how much mental disturbance must lie at 
the other end of a baby's wail. But if we could 
anticipate all his natural necessary wants and pre- 
vent the pang of desire and outcry of indignation, 
we should set in motion those currents of peace 
and content that might bear him smoothly along 
to acquiescence with the conditions of his life. 

His primary wants can be met. The world has 
supply ready. Our function is to put it within his 

reach. 

First of all, warmth and repose. The careful 
mother will long before have secured all the 
means to this end. There will be a large basket, 
thickly lined with comfortables, placed in a corner 
of the room out of draughts and in dimness, and 
the instant the little one has had the first necessary 
offices performed for him by the attending phy- 
sician, before washing or dressing are attempted- 
he will be gently wrapped in a piece of cotton 
cloth, then wrapped in a thick layer of cotton wad- 
ding and placed in the basket, completely covered 
with the exception of his face. And there he will 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

be left until he awakes from the nap which, if he is 
normal, he will instantly fall into. It may last two 
hours; possibly a dozen. But let all be ready for 
his bath and toilet the moment he awakes. 

Young, inexperienced mothers are too often 
doubtful of their own common sense and are 
guided by the theories of nurses, many of whom 
are accustomed to " take the line of least resist- 
ance," doing what is most agreeable for them- 
selves. They will insist upon some little details 
which, after all, amount to nothing, and miss the 
real point of all their ministrations. 

What matter is it whether the baby be invested 
first with a silk or linen shirt, or covered with the 
dressed skin of the chamois — so that he is com- 
fortable? He must be kept warm, not chilled for 
a second, and the way this is to be achieved is for 
mother wit and judgment to decide. Let her 
study the various plans and devices in vogue, and 
make her choice. I do not strenuously insist upon 
the special ways I have personally found satisfac- 
tory, for there are others as good. In making up 
the baby's wardrobe, seek warmth, simplicity, and 
quick dressing. If we could so arrange things that 
the tiny one could be completely dressed with a 
single touch, that would be the quintessence of 
perfection. Whatever approaches this, is best. 
33 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

So far as is possible, have the little garments fit 
into one another, so they may slip on together. 
Avoid complications and weighty trimmings, and 
oh! avoid laces and edgings about the neck. The 
softest, daintiest finish deft hands can achieve is 
none too nice for the tender throat against which 
the rasping of a thread's end is unpleasant. 

This is not the time for gratifying our own 
vanity, but for securing baby's comfort. Bath and 
toilet disposed of, the matter of nourishment de- 
mands the next attention. And after being fed, 
the baby falls asleep again. 

While lying apparently so passive, the vital 
forces within this fragile little being are at work. 
There is not a moment in our lives when we are 
not receiving something that is essential to our ex- 
istence from outside. Our bodies carry on many 
processes at the same time, and while some of our 
organs seem to be resting while others work, they 
are in fact gathering up strength to begin their 
period of activity at the right moment. The or- 
gan whose turn it is to work, having received its 
quota of power — its food — from the external 
source of supply, busies itself with employing it to 
the best advantage; meanwhile, other organs per- 
form the secondary duty of laying in their supplies 
against the time of need. 
34 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

Now, baby having received his food, his diges- 
tive organs come to the fore. But let us not fancy 
that nothing else is being done for him by nature 
than to accomplish the assimilation of this palpa- 
ble nourishment. The demands of his stomach 
having been satisfied, his lungs put forth their 
claim. They exact air to breathe. Very little, as 
yet, but that little must be pure, and rich in the 
elements necessary to life. 

Whenever there are several persons in one 
room, the person having the largest frame, the 
greatest lung power, gets the first choice of that 
precious element all unconsciously struggle for — 
oxygen. If the atmosphere is bad, he neverthe- 
less gets the best there is, and the others must 
take what is left. In a very little while he will 
have absorbed all the virtue the place has, and 
weaker people will begin to suffer. If nervous and 
sensitive, they will become irritable, without know- 
ing why. And little children, having the smaller 
lungs, will suffer yet more, probably making their 
discomfort known by vocal signs of distress which 
are intelligible neither to themselves nor their 
friends. 

There is one compensation afforded by the pres- 
ence of a strong, healthy personality among fee- 
bler people. If greedy of atmosphere, he partly 
35 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

pays for the robbery in a subtle, unexplainable 
diffusion of magnetism. If he dominates them he 
yet supports them; and it is a most curious fact 
that if they, in a way, submit to the influence he 
exerts, and feel no antagonism, they receive bene- 
fit from the heat that emanates from such a posi- 
tive nature. Where he likes, he blesses; his friend- 
liness is radiant of good. But only so long as 
those around him are passive and conciliatory. 
He is of those forces of nature that either rule or 
ruin, and the first person who grows restive and 
self-assertive, who exhibits the stir of a distinct 
individuality, feels the chill of a black frost of 
enmity which he must either perish under or con- 
quer, according to the strength that is in him. 

And all this warfare between individualities goes 
on without our recognizance every day of our 
lives. We know that we enjoy the society of some 
persons, and dread that of others; that being with 
one makes us feel better; with another one, worse. 
But we do not often inquire why. This is one of 
the reasons, the one immediately bearing upon 
the subject in hand. We should understand at 
least enough about it in order to apply its logic 
to our children. 

A robust, magnetic person who likes children, 
and who is of that unselfish disposition which dis- 
36 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

penses kindliness unconsciously and without ef- 
fort, is a beneficent presence in a nursery. He, 
or she, will certainly get the lion's share of oxy- 
gen; but if there is an ample supply, and the apart- 
ment properly ventilated, this does no harm. 
When awake, little ones will enjoy the animating 
influence of such a companion; when asleep, they 
will thrive under her tender, watchful care. 

In every one of those old superstitions which 
we have discarded there is a germ of common- 
sense, of truth which it may be well for us to pre- 
serve. Our forefathers, not so very long ago, be- 
lieved in " the evil eye," and trembled if a malig- 
nant glance was cast upon a sleeping infant. If 
we translate this idea, as we have translated so 
many others, back from the unknown to the physi- 
cal world, we can recognize that there are actual 
possibilities of ill for susceptible personalities in 
the contact with what is inimical to them. 

Why will a young baby turn away with a cry 
from a frowning visage? Frowns and smiles are 
as yet to him only distortions of feature. Why 
will he manifest discomfort under cold, unfriendly 
handling, however skilful, and be pleased when his 
nurse is tender and affectionate? Some subtle im- 
pression, more than has seemed to be conveyed 
through eye and ear, has passed into his con- 
37 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

sciousness. The moral that is entwined with the 
physical has expressed itself, and the intuition that 
is, in this undeveloped brain, probably an inherited 
instinct, essential to self-preservation when every 
new-born animal was environed with foes, still 
performs its office, and the ignorant, illogical 
infant arrives without thinking at a conclusion 
not always reached by the wisest among us; he 
knows his enemies and his friends. 

There is no "evil eye"; yet is there a loving 
mother so philosophical that she would not quickly 
draw away from the bedside of her child a person 
who betrayed for it contempt or dislike? And 
she would be right. I would surround my dear 
little one with the modern substitute for obsolete 
guardian angels, and be careful that while he slept 
there was a pure, peaceful quality in the moral at- 
mosphere of his room, as well as a plentiful supply 
of pure, fresh air for his lungs. 

Just as that air must be warm, so must the at 
mosphere be genial. Peace, serenity, and gentle 
ness — I insist upon the need of them for the wel- 
fare of the child. Let storm and strife, anger, 
roughness, and hard words rage in the backwoods 
where the new-born are all little brutes, doomed 
to undergo for generations the discipline that 
shall refine their faculties to higher uses. Their 
3§ 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

houses are rough logs, their clothing a single gar- 
ment, their food heavy with the lust of animal life, 
unflavored by an aspiration for the beautiful. Few, 
in this age, are quite so low. Yet many are but 
little higher. 

As regards refinement, how immeasurably su- 
perior are our handsome, well-furnished houses, 
with their complete equipment for every need of 
refined, fastidious mental and physical natures. 
Perfect sanitary arrangements, of course. One 
need hardly suggest now that good drainage 
should be secured; sewerage be excluded from 
bedrooms, and sunshine and fresh air be as regu- 
lar visitors as palatable meals. 

Every intelligent person knows this. The chil- 
dren learn it from their physiology lessons at 
school. Men read about it in their morning pa- 
pers; mothers find it broadly hinted in the very 
fashion columns of their favorite journals. Cer- 
tainly nothing more need be said. 

But in all the large cities in the world thousands 
of intelligent, prosperous people, able to choose 
their homes, are dwelling at this hour in houses 
and apartments where they are obliged at noon- 
day to light the gas in their bedrooms. Where 
the halls are ever unsunned and unaired; the sit- 
ting rooms permeated with fine dust from half- 
39 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

brushed carpets and draperies, and the odor of 
cookery hangs about from morning till night; a 
sickening reminder of our lowest bodily need. 

There are nurseries in these houses heated like 
ovens with dry furnace heat; children's rooms that 
no more see the sun than a Parsee under punish- 
ment; and kitchens, which to see is to yearn for a 
gap in one's memory. 

If all these abuses persist among educated peo- 
ple; if they go on, doing every day the things they 
are warned every day, by the commonest sources 
of information, not to do; if some cultured 
mothers do not yet fully know how to feed and 
dress their babies, and some trained teachers in 
our best schools placidly defy every known rule 
of hygiene; how can we expect that the subtler, 
less generally recognized influences upon health 
which are here alluded to, will receive the slightest 
attention? 

I am hopeful of it because an understanding of 
the intimate relations between mind and body 
puts life and interest into dead maxims, gives us 
logical reasons for rules of hygiene, and shows that 
although it may not be within the power of all 
parents to rear their children under the best ma- 
terial conditions, they may so imbue those chil- 
dren with vitality that they can overcome the 
40 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

smaller obstacles which interfere with their de- 
velopment; because they are in harmony with the 
larger purposes of nature. 

Now, nothing so sensibly lowers the tempera- 
ture of a room as the presence of a melancholy, 
miserable person. He swallows all the life of the 
air and exhales poison; a noxious human plant, 
deadly in its effects. If we cannot have sunny 
apartments for the little ones, pray exclude the 
dense shade of a miserable personality. Keep out 
persons who are bitter in disposition, spiteful or 
intensely selfish, as you would keep out an evil- 
smelling kerosene lamp. A little child cannot 
breathe in such an atmosphere. There are pretty 
romances describing placid, smiling infants lying 
in their cradles, while around them stand wicked 
men hatching foul plans. In reality, a baby will 
stir uneasily if steadily looked at while asleep; un- 
less the gaze is friendly. 

And if the little one is so sensitive when wrap- 
ped in semi-unconsciousness, he is more so when 
awake. There is so much difference between in- 
fants as to the time their senses awaken that we 
can only know in each case by making tests. Some 
babies hear a few hours after birth; some see, 
some shed tears. To class them all together is 
to make a grave mistake, for the more highly de- 
4 1 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

veloped the organism, the more careful we must 
be in our treatment of it. 

A twofold object is embraced now in our care: 
to create about our child a wholesome, inspiring 
atmosphere, and to help him to adapt himself to 
his surroundings. The air is to be pure; neither 
vitiated by bad odors, exhalations from human 
breath, nor by the poison of vicious personalities. 
In insisting upon this I am merely putting into 
words the unspoken impression of every mind 
which has, at one time or another, dwelt upon the 
innocence and loveliness of infancy. Every one 
knows that its natural, appropriate surroundings 
are those the most removed from all that is coarse 
and brutal on earth, and the nearest to our ideal 
of heaven. But we do not sufficiently put our 
knowledge into practice. Of what use are the 
fair images of poetry, the elevating suggestions of 
art, the ideals of religion, if we do not strive reso- 
lutely to realize them in our daily life? Practical 
idealism is at least the only philosophy fit for par- 
ents to hold; and no vision of perfection which 
may visit one of us now is too great to be achieved 
by some other more gifted one, sometime. 

But there are really no such things as extrava- 
gant ideas; there are merely extravagant expres- 
sions. Put the same idea into cooler words, and 
42 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

its truth is manifest. Now, we have an expres- 
sion — " native air." Sometimes, when ailing 
abroad, a person is advised to return to his " na- 
tive air." Very sick persons not infrequently have 
a longing for this. It is impossible for them to 
adapt themselves to new climes, and they crave the 
clime they were born into. As a general thing, 
the locality where our earliest years were spent 
agrees with us better than any other. Apart from 
sentimental associations, there is reason in this 
natural bias. But it is, after all, impossible to sep- 
arate the bias from associations. Matters recog- 
nized by our other senses are intertwined with 
those recognized by the temperature sense; or, if 
I may be so bold, moral- perception. We breathe 
in the salt air of the sea, the piny breath of wood- 
land hills, and we breathe in reminiscences or 
childish happiness, of peace and innocence. We 
bless the one not less than the other. Who can 
separate the merely physical sensation from the in- 
tellectual impression, and say where the one 
pleasure begins and the other ends? 

The air we inhale each moment is saturated with 
moral and mental life; that we exhale loaded with 
the weight of our own moods and thoughts. What 
delight there is in getting up into some new, high 
place, from which others have been absent long 
43 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

enough for the wind to have carried away every 
trace of their visits, and we seem for awhile to 
have a little piece of the world to ourselves! How 
we throw back our heads and raise our chests and 
turn our eyes toward the sky! How real and sen- 
sible seems the phrase " life-giving atmosphere," 
which ordinarily falls unheeded on our ears. Just 
as the gases made by indigestion and blood dis- 
orders pass off, so do vapors of the imagination 
and reason float away, and we have our little hour 
of sanity, of health. 

Is it unreasonable, then, to demand for the child 
that which we find so beneficial for ourselves? 
During the first period of life, when the baby is 
becoming used to indoor air, let us arrange the 
atmosphere according to our knowledge of the 
way it ought to be. And so soon as he is able to 
leave the house, which will probably be when he 
is a month old, send him out into the fresher air 
of outdoors. 

Of course, a sensible mother will tenderly wrap 
up her month-old infant in light, warm garments; 
thin and fleecy in summer weather, and thick in 
winter. She will select a clear, dry day for this 
momentous first outing, which should take place 
soon after baby has been fed. Let us recollect one 
rule: a person seldom "takes cold" unless he is 
44 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

tired, hungry, or sad. Send the little one out, 
therefore, in good condition, and with a person 
so trusty, so wise — that scarcely one in a thousand 
will fulfil the requirements. 

Volumes might be written on the carelessness 
of nurses; volumes have been. Legions of ser- 
mons might be preached as to the proper care of 
children out-of-doors; and they have been. Of 
what avail? Mothers are not yet impressed with 
the incalculable importance of kind and wise su- 
pervision of this daily hour or so of the child's 
life. They send the little ones out to get the air, 
without giving heed to the kind of air they shall 
get, or under what conditions. 

In large cities one sees hundreds of tiny faces 
wrinkled distressfully under the horror of the noises 
and smells of crowded business streets. Elevated 
trains shed cinders and smoke, cable-cars necessi- 
tate a rapid whirling across from sidewalk to side- 
walk, and every demoniacal sound of civiliza- 
tion swells into a bewildering roar under which 
hapless childhood totters, stupefied. Outings of 
this kind are only beneficial in contrast with home 
in a dark cellar. 

A quiet street should be selected for our little 
one's promenade in nurse's arms. A park, prefer- 
ably. Yet there are times when we want to give 
45 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

trees and foliage a rather wide berth. In early 
autumn, and just after rainfall, proximity to them 
is not wholesome. At other times, however, cities 
afford no better spots for our little ones to spend 
their period of exercise. 

Let us have no carriage for baby until he gets 
too heavy to be carried. And when we get one 
we must convert it into a veritable nest, with 
plenty of warm, clean afghans, not an old fur robe, 
full of dust and disease germs. One very common 
addition to baby's toilet needs comment. Until 
two or three months have elapsed since his tender 
eyes have seen the light, it may be necessary to 
throw a light tissue veil over his face while out- 
of-doors. But let us be extremely careful to ad- 
just it well, so that it shall not press tightly against 
his nose or eyes, nor be converted into a veritable 
" wet blanket " by glueing itself against his mouth. 
The veil should never be a thick one, nor be con- 
tinued after the little one's eyesight can bear broad 
daylight. 

In very windy weather a baby carriage should 
be kept with its back to the wind, and the nurse 
ought continually to interpose her own person 
so as to guard her charge from a rough blast. 
By the proper arrangement of a parasol, his face 
can be protected. However, our little one will 
46 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

not be out in windy weather until he is at least 
six months old, and can sit, instead of lying help- 
lessly on his cushions. Among the many other 
avoidable discomforts that wait upon infancy is 
the posture little ones are usually forced to as- 
sume in their carriages. Baby is taken out not 
solely for change of air, but to give him variety 
and entertainment. As soon as he has begun to 
" take notice," he likes to see what is going on 
around him. How can he, if he is placed flat upon 
his back and chained tightly down with coverings? 
He can stare at the sky, certainly; but that pas- 
time grows monotonous. 

One baby of my acquaintance was treated dif- 
ferently. The beautiful little fellow, strong both 
in spine and neck from birth, was put into his car- 
riage every day, after he was three months old, 
for a ride; hooded, cloaked and mittened, but 
neither veiled nor strapped in, for the watchful 
mother walked in front and kept one hand on him, 
so that he could move about freely without risk. 
Instead of being laid upon his back the space at 
the head of his carriage was raised by several lay- 
ers of blanket, topped by his little square pillow, 
so as to form an inclined plane; and he was then 
placed comfortably, so that the upper part of his 
body was considerably higher than his feet, and he 
47 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

could look around and use his arms at will. He 
was a most active and intelligent little fellow, and 
however much of this was due to nature, his de- 
velopment was at least not retarded by unwise 
practices on the part of his nurses. 

It is not my aim to give minute and positive ad- 
vice concerning details, for there are no rules 
which can be indiscriminately applied. In the 
matter of " outings," some children need more, 
some less. Mothers should carefully observe the 
effect of the plans they follow, and alter them as 
seems advisable. Alas, that we must experiment 
at all with our children! But since we must, let 
us do it with intelligence and caution. Some 
things are unfailingly indicated by common sense; 
for instance, that since a young child ought not 
to be either chilled or over-heated, he should not 
be out-of-doors in wintry weather much longer 
than half an hour at one time; while in summer 
the cool, fresh hours of early morning must be se- 
lected for his rides and walks, and if he spends 
this period of heat in the country, there is no rea- 
son why he may not be kept out-of-doors all day. 
But never let a little child remain out-of-doors 
after sundown, either in winter or summer. 

I say this while recollecting vividly the ridicule 
that some doctors cast upon what they call " the 
48 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

night-air superstition." Certainly, the only air we 
can breathe at night is " night air." And it ought 
to be pure. But if possible, high up above the 
ground. I should refuse to permit any child un- 
der six or seven years old to go out-of-doors after 
four o'clock in winter, or seven in summer — that 
is, after sunset — unless some exigency demanded 
it. 

Upon rainy days it is well to put on children's 
outdoor garments, open the windows, and let 
them romp and play for awhile under shelter; just 
as long as older people can stand the noise. En- 
durance of it will be easier if they share in the little 
ones' games. If it is a piece of self-sacrifice, it 
brings its reward. Grown people who unaffect- 
edly and heartily participate in a child's recreation 
hour, gain in freshness and vigor by temporarily 
throwing off their burden of years. Is it not 
something to have " time roll backward," making 
us children again for the nonce, even if our cares 
stand waiting to spring at us again when we re- 
sume our usual attitude? I have seen a dignified 
general in the army get down upon the floor to 
" play bear " with his grandchildren, and arise 
with a pink flush upon his cheek and the laughter 
of youth on his grizzled lips; the better and hap- 
pier for his self-forgetfulness. 
49 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

Children like so well to have their elders play 
with them that once having tasted the pleasure, 
they are apt to become importunate little beggars. 
Perhaps it were wise to bestow our company as 
a reward and favor. But where happy relations 
exist among the members of a family, an agreeable 
free-masonry prevails that does away with stern 
reserves. Holidays are youth's natural time of 
privilege, and they do not come too often with the 
merriest among us. What would life be without 
its winter sports and pastimes, its spring and sum- 
mer vacations? They are welcome to the oldest, 
but craved and desperately needed by the growing 
generation. 

The colored people of the South, whose rude 
vernacular is full of graphic expressions, have an 
odd and appropriate phrase for the friskiness of 
children. They say, " You'se got spring in yo' 
bones, child! " 

Yesterday, while sitting on a bench in a park, 
this phrase was recalled to me while watching the 
gambols of some little children. " Gambols," I 
said, but " struggles " would be more appropriate. 
The tots had " spring in their bones," the glad- 
some feeling that enters into all young things 
when the first warm sunbeams have chased winter 
away and coaxed forth the tender buds, and the 
5° 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

ground is covered with waving spires of grass. 
Everything in nature is full of motion. You can 
almost see the plants grow and the leaves unfold. 
The birds and squirrels seem wild with delight, 
and in the country the colts toss up their heels, 
the lambs frisk about, and every youthful creature 
expresses the joy of living by some sort of muscu- 
lar action. 

The young of the human race are alone bound 
over to keep quiet. They are taken out to walk 
in the beautiful parks, and compelled to restrain 
that natural impulse which makes them want to 
roll over on the velvety grass and climb trees and 
dig in the earth. There is no help for it as things 
go. If children were allowed these liberties, the 
beauty of the parks would soon be spoiled. They 
would become mere play- grounds. Poor little ones! 
What a life they lead, between the restrictions of 
the police and the riotous nature in their breasts. 

But since the laws of society are so hard upon 
children, it would seem that we ought to lighten 
the pressure somewhat by our sympathy and in- 
dulgence. It is charged against American chil- 
dren that they are boisterous and self-assertive in 
public. I have myself often been surprised and 
pained at the lack of consideration for their elders 
shown by our young people in the way of grasp- 
5i 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

ing car-seats, taking possession of the easiest 
chairs in the parlor and the choicest bits at table; 
in their inclination to dispute and their greed 
of attention. But if children are unmannerly, bad 
training is clearly the cause. They are mal elevies. 
It is quite possible to be happy, spontaneous, and 
overflowing with good spirits, and yet be docile 
and sweet-tempered. To sit still is not virtue. 
Sitting still may be required, but running about, 
climbing, twisting, and stretching every muscle 
in his little body, is much more natural and con- 
genial to a child, and every opportunity ought to 
be given him thus to work off an activity that will 
certainly turn to fretfulness if restrained. 

Doubtless much of the docility of the country 
child indoors is owing to the liberty he enjoys out 
of the house. If all our city children had play- 
grounds of their own, there would be less insubor- 
dination from them. Sedate, middle-aged peo- 
ple forget that there was once a time when the 
feeling of sunshine and fresh air mounted like wine 
to their heads, and a little physical freedom 
seemed the finest thing in the world. 

Leaving for the instant the matter of outdoor 

exercise, which is considered later, we will speak 

of a subject which everyone acknowledges to be 

of the first importance. Fresh air is justly consid- 

5 2 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

ered such a boon that it alone seems worth going 
out-of-doors for, and we console ourselves when 
reflecting that our children must walk sedately 
along the city sidewalks instead of exercising, that 
at all events they are getting the good of the air. 

But are we quite sure of this? Have we taught 
them how to breathe properly, so they may appro- 
priate the life-giving elements of the air to their 
own benefit? Do we know, ourselves? A faulty 
manner of breathing is responsible for many of 
the maladies that attack us. Yet the term now so 
much used, " deep breathing," is absurdly misun- 
derstood. Babies, it is said, breathe normally; but 
from some unexplained cause little children rapidly 
pass to a false method, and it is necessary to 
watch them and correct faults before they be- 
come confirmed. We should be careful that our 
directions are clear and accurate. 

A doctor who attended me in my childhood rec- 
ommended, as a remedy for a chronic shortness of 
breath, stopping at every corner when I walked 
out, " to take in a long, full breath — just as much 
air as the lungs could be made to hold." My con- 
scientious attention to this advice brought mental 
satisfaction, but not physical benefit. It had not 
occurred to the good doctor, any more than it 
occurs to the majority of persons who consider 
53 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

themselves authorities upon hygiene, that before 
you fill a stove with fresh fuel you must first clear 
out the debris left from the old fire. There is a 
limit to the capacity of the lungs to hold air, and 
if they are already clogged, as they commonly are, 
with effete gaseous matter, one may swell like a 
balloon with the effort to take in fresh air and it 
will not penetrate beneath the upper region of the 
lungs, leaving the deep recesses, which ought to 
be reached, entirely unaffected. The lungs need 
thorough evacuation of poisonous matter, as the 
bowels do. That person is blamed who continues 
to eat full meals when the kidneys and intestine- 
refuse to perform their offices. " Set these torpid 
organs to work," would be advised, and we would 
meekly try laxatives and other remedial agents. 
But just as much do the lungs need to be made 
to perform their full duty in carrying out of the 
system air which has been respired and is conse- 
quently charged with carbonic acid gas. 

The reason why we need to use some effort to 
do this is because, through wrongly adjusted 
clothing and bad habits of posture which weaken 
the muscles, most persons have acquired the habit 
of half breathing. They take air in a little way, and 
send it out in the same languid manner, and rarely 
know the pleasure of a full, rushing breath which 
54 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

energizes the entire system and makes one know 
the joy of living. 

We must bear in mind that there are two parts 
to the act of breathing — inhaling and exhaling — 
and one is no more important than the other. 
Children should be taught to breathe out vigor- 
ously as well as to breathe in, and always to make 
an energetic effort to squeeze the lungs free of 
old air before they take in a full breath. We are 
usually afraid of a full expiration; it makes weak 
persons dizzy. But there is not the slightest dan- 
ger to be incurred by breathing out just as long 
as possible, and after one thinks that the air is all 
out it is well to draw in the abdomen and pump 
the lungs dry by pressing the hands against the 
sides. Then take a full, deep breath. 

If this little exercise is performed out-of-doors, 
so much the better. If in the house, the window 
should be open for a moment, unless the atmos- 
phere is very pure. The chief benefit is to impress 
the child with the importance of complete breath- 
ing, so that he will insensibly acquire the habit 
of breathing more deeply at all times. There 
are a few simple rules to heed. One is, the shoul- 
ders must never be raised while inhaling. An- 
other, keep the chest from sinking while breathing 
out. In exercising it is well to stand with the 
55 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

weight on the balls, or middle part, of the feet, the 
arms hanging lightly by the sides, so that the body 
will neither be thrown backward nor bent forward. 

A little book appeared some time ago giving 
good advice upon keeping the mouth shut. This 
is excellent as far as it goes, but one must also 
keep the nostrils open. Large nostrils and great 
vitality ordinarily go together, but it is not gener- 
ally known that the nostrils may be enlarged by 
exercise. Breathing might well be made the sub- 
ject of a trifold division: breathing merely to live, 
which is the half-way breathing that most of us do; 
breathing for health, or deep and correct breath- 
ing: and breathing for exercise, which is a sort of 
mild and pleasant calisthenic that even invalids can 
take. 

I taught a class of kindergarten children some 
of the simple principles of correct breathing sev- 
eral years ago, and one morning one of the mites 
popped out: "I had a cold last night and my 
nose was all stopped up, so I tried the exercise you 
gave us, and the cold all went away! " 

The exercise was, holding moist air in the nasal 
chamber, and is performed in this manner: Hold- 
ing the body erect, with the shoulders down and 
the chest steady, place the left thumb over the left 
nostril and breathe in slowly through the right 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

nostril until no more air can be inhaled. Now, 
cover the right nostril with the right thumb, re- 
move the thumb from the left nostril and breathe 
out fully. Reverse the order, and repeat several 
times. This is single-nostril breathing. Now 
comes the second part of our exercise. After in- 
haling deeply through one nostril, cover both nos- 
trils with the thumb and forefinger, shutting in 
the air. Imagine yourself gaping, and try to put 
the throat in the position for a yawn — this opens 
the throat. Keep the mouth shut. Now, let the 
air gently come forward into the nostrils till the 
nose is swelled out, then remove the thumb, 
breathe out fully and take in a deep breath, of 
course through the nostrils. 

This exercise should not be performed more 
than twice in succession, nor oftener than three 
times in one day. It is a very beneficial exercise 
for persons who are prone to colds in the head, 
but a mother should thoroughly master it herself 
before she essays to teach it. 

There is one suggestion I almost hesitate to 
make, because unless carried out with extreme 
care it may do far more harm than good. Never 
attempt it with a child too young to be self-pos- 
sessed and reasonable, nor persist in it against the 
little one's expostulation. Fill a bowl half full of 
57 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

clean, warm water, adding a tablespoonful of pure 
glycerine, then get the child to lean over until his 
face rests upon the surface of it, and breathe in 
once or twice, until the water has entered and 
been expelled from his nostrils, clearing them 
more efficaciously than can be done in any other 
way, if they tend to be " stopped up." Be very 
gentle, and do not let the child become nervous. 
He will possibly feel oddly the first time, but 
should soon comprehend that this measure, while 
not pleasant, is of great benefit, sometimes curing 
a slight head cold when nothing else can. After 
he is rested, induce him to take a few deep breaths, 
expelling the air, as I have before suggested, by- 
pressing the hands upon the abdomen. 

An excellent method of overcoming the fault 
that most children and many grown persons have 
of catching the breath through the mouth while 
talking, is to practice counting in one breath. 
Take a deep breath and count, in a clear, loud 
tone, up to ten; then stop, shut the mouth quickly, 
get a good breath through the nostrils, and count 
up to twenty. Rest a little, and count to thirty. 
So on, until your limit is reached. After a 
month's practice one should be able to reach 
one hundred with ease. Most little ones will like 
this exercise; and another to which they take 
58 



THE CHILD AND HIS ATMOSPHERE 

kindly is breathing in through the nostrils, then 
breathing out through the mouth, alternately. 

No pains are too great to engraft firmly in a 
child's life the habit of deep breathing at all times, 
and under all circumstances. Mothers must be pa- 
tient, ingenious in making exercises seem like play 
at first, and watchful that they are rightly per- 
formed, as otherwise they are useless. It would 
be delightful if every mother could take a short 
course in deep breathing of an accomplished pro- 
fessor, so that she would really possess the art. 
But some good can be gained by carrying out 
these few simple suggestions. Intelligent children 
as young as three or four may be taught to 
breathe deeply, and if they are bored and fretted 
by the lessons — there is something amiss with 
their teacher's method. For no other lessons are 
so stimulating, both to body and mind, as breath 
calisthenics. 

59 



CHAPTER III 
EDUCATING THE NERVES 

" It is said the healthy body helps to make a healthy brain ; it is 
also true that a well-regulated brain helps to keep the rest of the 
body in good health."— Warner. 

The underlying cause of many ailments that 
attack the present generation is nervelessness, or 
a deficiency of vital force. A change has come 
over civilized people, as a noted writer upon in- 
sanity observes, and whereas diseases used to 
affect the circulatory system, they are now carried 
over into the nervous system. 

There has grown up a misapplication of the 
word " nervous " which obliges us frequently to 
use it in a directly opposite sense from what it 
originally meant, and we now say that a person 
is nervous when we mean that he is weak and un- 
certain in his acts, instead of employing the term 
to describe a creature full of life and vigor. To be 
alert and active is the normal condition of a 
60 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

healthy being. A perfect circulation implies en- 
joyment in moving about, Avhile apathy and slug- 
gishness are signs of some malady. Weak nerves 
and weak muscles go together. Mothers should, 
therefore, watch carefully those babies who are 
very quiet, slow to move and heavy in their mo- 
tions; either very frail in structure, probably with 
peculiarly clear, transparent eyes; or else fat about 
the head, small-boned and with a sort of limpness 
about them, shown sometimes in a loose grasp of 
the fingers upon whatever is given them to hold. 
Although there are many other variations of the 
nervous type, these are, I think, among those 
most apt to become abnormal in brain develop- 
ment. A high degree of excitability is more hope- 
ful, more amenable to training, than this nerve 
and muscle weakness. But proper training will do 
much even for those born with these tendencies, 
while for average children, of normal bodily and 
mental equipment, it will do everything. 

The chief point in the physical training of chil- 
dren is to educate their nerves, and the time to 
take this matter deliberately in hand is as soon 
as they are born. We may suppose the infant, 
upon entering the world, possessed of a certain 
burden of energy held at the command of circum- 
stances. The first suggestion made to his brain 
6i 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

starts a portion of it off upon some path. This 
explorer beckons more to follow. Rapidly, infal- 
libly, the habit of energy flying in that direction 
is established, for nerve tissues have memory and 
tend to do over again the thing they have done 
before. 

So, it is of the utmost importance to make the 
first acts we impose upon the infant, and which it 
so automatically carries out, a good example for 
its nerves. Before they have done anything, they 
don't know anything to do, although they have 
more or less strong tendencies; but after we have 
set them in motion by our handling of the child, 
they know how to do some one thing, and quickly 
store up the knowledge in their memory as a prec- 
edent. The absurdity of declaring that little 
babies know nothing, and it makes no difference 
what sort of habits they are accustomed to at first, 
is at once apparent when we realize that memory 
is not confined to the mental acts of a person, but 
relates to his physical acts also, and it is no mis- 
nomer to say that his very fingers and toes, or his 
vocal chords, have a memory of their own. 

Consequently, by establishing good habits in 

the child's life, we are beginning his nerve training 

in the right way. Everything in nature — and in 

art, too — that is natural, is regular, and acts in a 

62 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

regular, methodical fashion. Irregularity in the 
structure of a tree is a disfigurement, and irreg- 
ularity in the conduct of a person is a moral dis- 
figurement, always deeply mixed with some bad 
physical habit. As " nervousness " is a revolt 
against law and order, against what is seemly and 
appropriate to the individual, everything which is 
effectual in bringing nerves under the dominion 
of will power and reason is valuable in physical 
training. 

Two great lessons are to be impressed upon the 
child's nervous system: quiet, or the power of re- 
fraining from action; and deliberate activity, which 
is carrying out rightly impulses that have been 
normally aroused. Of which two the first is the 
more difficult, and belongs to a more advanced 
stage of life, as it involves a greater degree of self- 
control. Nearly all maxims of conduct are pro- 
hibitory; we are continually enjoined not to do 
thus and so. To adults, the wisest and most ex- 
perienced, this advice is ever reiterated. Yet, we 
expect of babies, not yet possessing a capacity for 
other sorts of action which can carry off the en- 
ergy so checked, power to keep from doing the 
few things they have learned and toward which 
there is a spontaneous flow of impulse. But such 
self-restraint is beyond them. 
63 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

We must first cultivate the child's body to 
act rightly, and afterward desire of it that degree 
of self-restraint which involves a comparison and 
choice between right and wrong. The physical 
and moral natures are so dependent upon each 
other, and the laws of each so intertwined, that it 
is impossible to speak of bodily things without in- 
troducing considerations which are ethical. So, 
when I speak of training the child's body to act 
rightly, I mean, to act in obedience to the laws of 
development, which it should know through hav- 
ing practised them long before a conscious ac- 
quaintance with them takes place. 

All intellectual culture, all moral education, 
stand upon the basis of nerve-training. What are 
nerves? Threads of communication between our 
outward surroundings and our brains. A com- 
plicated nervous system is a sign of a fine organ- 
ism. The complete, perfected creature of civiliza- 
tion is one whose every nerve is toned up to do its 
duty, responsive to call, like the notes of a fine 
piano. But unhappily, this acute sensibility is ac- 
companied by the great disadvantage of liability 
to shocks from what is unpleasant and injurious. 
And particularly in America there are too many 
stimulants to nerve action. In the first place, our 
climate, with its extremes of temperature. A 
64 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

topographical map, showing the effect of different 
altitudes upon health, charges the notheastern 
part of our continent with the severest strain upon 
the nerves; the Middle States west of the Missis- 
sippi River are far less exigent, and the South and 
extreme West are most favorable. Generally, 
moisture is conducive to phlegm, although a high 
and dry climate, if equable, is the very best for 
health. Our climate, as a whole, is less equable 
than that of any other nation upon the globe, and 
its sudden, startling changes of weather keep alive 
much of our painful susceptibility, for human na- 
ture cannot become inured to shocks. 

Disagreeable noises are, perhaps, the next most 
wearing factors in our lives. We are accustomed 
to submitting to these without realizing; how bane- 
ful they are. Something that at first seems intol- 
erable finally ceases to be noticed, and we flatter 
ourselves that it no longer hurts us. The shrieks 
of factory whistles, the rattle over cobblestones, 
the din of numberless musical instruments, may 
all be borne with equanimity when they blend into 
an indistinguishable roar, for any rhythmical noise 
resembles the melody of nature. The restful ef- 
fect of listening to the ocean breakers in their 
measured ebb and flow is precisely contrary to the 
disagreeable alertness, and sense of being kept on 
65 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

the quivive, caused by the abrupt noises that con- 
stantly assail our ears in the whirl of city life. 

This is one of the greatest advantages that the 
country has over towns. Even more than the 
pure air the quiet atmosphere promotes peace of 
mind. So, it is desirable to select the most 
quiet spot available for the daily outings of our 
children, if we must rear them in town. And 
it is also essential to protect them as far as possi- 
ble from another terrible factor of American civil- 
ization — hurry. The evil consequences of our mis- 
erable fashion of rushing to catch cars, and 
driving ourselves continually from one duty to an- 
other, is manifest in the fretted, anxious look upon 
the faces of little ones thus jostled about. Never 
say to a child " hurry " unless to rescue him from 
some impending danger. Say at the right time 
and place, " Be prompt and be ready," so that he 
can adjust himself to the occasion without discom- 
fort. It is useless to warn grown people against 
slavery to their clocks. We are mostly bent upon 
finishing a piece of work within a given time. But 
as this puts a strain upon nerves, we should, when 
the work is done, relax, and indulge ourselves with 
a brief play spell. A succession of strains breaks 
down adults, and hurts children even more. 

The child who has an ambitious, emulative spirit 
66 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

needs to be especially guarded from suggestions 
to " catch up " with whatever is ahead. What a 
difference there is in this respect between white 
and black children ! When I was young we had in 
the family a colored lad who for idleness and trick- 
ery surpassed most others of his age. His mistress 
used bribes, threats, and cajoleries to induce him 
to get the dinner dishes washed seasonably, and 
finally resorted to the plan of giving him a certain 
limit to do them in. With edifying seriousness 
and a roll of his eyes the boy would approach her, 
saying, " Please time me, ma'am." And, upon re- 
ceiving the desired limit, would hasten to his 
kitchen with a business-like air. But whether the 
limit had been set for twenty minutes or two hours, 
we were sure of finding the young rogue stretched 
out comfortably on two chairs, fast asleep beside 
the untouched dishes, when we went to send him 
to bed. It is doubtful if any white person would 
be capable of such placid, persistent disregard of 
the claims of work. 

Young people are not usually given to intense 
concentration upon their pursuits, yet in propor- 
tion to their degree of mental discipline even a 
slight degree of absorption is a severe tax. So, 
we should be careful about disturbing and inter- 
rupting a child who shows signs of thinking hard 
67 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

either about his play or work. All interruptions 
to a chosen pursuit are irritating and injurious. 
The breaking of a chain of ideas is equal in its 
ill effects to a slight cut or burn of the skin, and 
anyone who is subject to continual interruptions 
soon begins to manifest that impatience and fret- 
fulness which are certain indications of nervous 
strain. Therefore, let children finish work they 
are interested in, unless their application extends 
into unseasonable hours. Let them prepare les- 
sons apart from the family, and at regular times; 
give them plenty of time to eat their meals, and 
while discouraging dawdling and unpunctuality, 
yet allow them a certain leisureliness in everything, 
for children who are hurried and driven inevitably 
develop some disease of the nerves. 

When this comes about and the child falls a vic- 
tim either to some acute disorder, such as " St. 
Vitus' Dance," or a more insidious malady like 
unreasonable fits of gloom or attacks of " cross- 
ness," remove him from school temporarily, should 
he be attending school, or suspend the occu- 
pations he is engaged in, whatever they are, and 
set him at something else. Fresh air is the first 
curative agent. In every season of mental depres- 
sion one should, if possible, live for hours at a time 
out-of-doors. Short outings, unless repeated sev- 
68 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

eral times every day, are not enough for the child 
whose nervous system is disordered. He needs, 
so to say, to immerse himself in the fresh air, 
and inhale as much oxygen as he can pump 
into his lungs. Manage so that he does not get 
over-excited in plays, avoiding, for that reason, 
those into which the spirit of competition enters. 
Try also to have him assume a good carriage of 
the body, for this has a wonderful effect upon the 
character. Mental and physical action being re- 
flex, a sickly body will droop and bow the mind 
with it, while depressed spirits put the body in an 
attitude that invites illness. The indicator for 
mental health is the chest, and it invariably drops 
in when a child is sad or weary. 

A watchful mother will detect the first signs of 
this drooping, and devote herself to changing the 
child's mental attitude till he becomes cheerful and 
composed again. A few exercises in deep breath- 
ing are among the best remedies, and there is one 
which is a positive specific, if a parent or teacher 
will take the trouble first to master it completely 
before imparting it to the child. 

Stand in the correct posture, head erect, weight 

resting on the balls of the feet, not the heels, chest 

upright and back straight. Draw in as much air 

as you can in one breath, hold it, then rise to the 

69 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

toes five times, taking in more air each time until 
the lungs are filled. Now, raise both arms hori- 
zontally in front of the body, stretch them straight 
out, shake both the hands at the wrists until they 
are limp, then begin and clinch the hands, at the 
same time drawing them back toward the shoul- 
ders, increasing the power until, as the knuckles 
touch the shoulders, the fists are clinched with 
fury. Open the hands and slowly drop the arms, 
letting the air out from the lungs while the chest 
is held upright. Then inhale deeply. If correctly 
performed this exercise will cause an electrical 
thrill to pass through the entire body, and the 
weak, spiritless person who puts himself through 
it three or four times each day will soon begin 
to take a new interest in living. 

There is always an exhilarating effect in a 
change of scene. If possible, take the nervous 
child away from home for a few days, so that his 
nerves which have formed bad habits may " take 
a new start." Anyway, get him out of his old rut 
into some novel path, and by every known means 
cultivate cheerfulness in him, and a wholesome 
interest in his surroundings. When a child says 
he " don't care " about anything, he is in a bad 
way. But instead of harassing him by entreaties 
or commands to take firmer hold of his oc- 
7° 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

cupations, we should go to work in another 
way. 

Actors know that assuming the outward sem- 
blance of a feeling helps to create the feeling itself. 
One of the first essentials in assuming a character 
is to take on the attitude and facial expression 
proper to it. The feelings will become tinged by 
the outward appearance, and a correspondence is 
quickly established between the play of expression 
and the emotional nature. 

Now, children are naturally and unconsciously 
actors; that is, they are artistic. What they feel 
they portray, and whatever they portray they feel 
again. In endeavoring to turn the current of a 
child's thoughts from an unhealthy channel into a 
healthy one, our object is gained if we can change 
the expression of his face and his bodily attitude 
into those belonging to a brighter mood. It is a 
great point if we can get him to smile or laugh, 
but after that he may relapse again. Then we 
must induce him to abandon his self-imposed role 
of " the knight of the rueful countenance " and 
take up a different one. 

Get the cross child to stand up and read aloud 

to you the most cheerful and inspiring piece of 

verse you can lay hands on. Pay no attention to 

his mood, but be as bland and sweet yourself as 

7i 



THE CHILDRENS HEALTH 

a summer's day. Appear deeply interested in what 
he reads to you; applaud, and encourage him to 
noisy demonstrations of mirth. If this little arti- 
fice has been successful, go a step farther and sug- 
gest a play or tableau of a burlesque sort, offering 
him the principal part. If there is a large family 
it is worth while to get up a little entertainment 
at home. The child who sets himself to act the 
part of a brisk, lively character is obliged to 
change his feelings to correspond with his role. 
But if this fails, he having no taste for dramatic 
art, and if music, also, has no power to charm him 
at least continue your efforts by surrounding him 
with cheerful companions. Be bright and cheer- 
ful yourself before him; particularly in the morn- 
ings, for they set the note for the day. 

I think much misery would be averted in this 
world if everybody had the habit of expanding 
his chest, and singing at the full compass of his 
voice a stanza of some cheery song every morning 
when getting out of bed. Singing is highly rec- 
ommended as a nerve tonic, and justly. When 
the world looks bleak and things are out of tone, 
going into a room by one's self, opening the win- 
dow and singing loudly " The Star Spangled Ban- 
ner " is a hundred times better than taking a pill. 
It exacts of one a great deal more resolution, but 
72 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

the very effort required is beneficial, for the chief 
thing to aim toward in dealing with disordered 
nerves is to induce an exertion of will power. 

Hence the great importance of educating the 
child's judgment very early. Long before any 
effort is made to educate him in the way of im- 
parting information, we should begin to train his 
senses to observe and his will to act. With gen- 
tleness and caution, selecting a moment when he 
is neither hungry nor sleepy, and shows a spon- 
taneous desire to look about, we may attract the 
attention of an infant of, say, two or three weeks 
old, to a brightly-colored ball swung before him. 
See if he eyes it steadily or if his gaze wanders. 
In the latter case there is probably lack of will 
power, and the greatest care is necessary to de- 
velop in that child muscular strength. Yet, he 
may respond to other means used to attract his 
notice. If he does not care to look, he may listen. 
Note whether he shows pleasure and interest in 
singing, and has preferences. One baby girl who 
fell under my observation showed remarkable dis- 
crimination in this way, decidedly preferring the 
" Sweet By and By " to any other song, and be- 
coming restless when others were used as lulla- 
bies. Infants of two and three months have been 
known to " croon " an accompaniment to the 
73 



THE CHILDRENS HEALTH 

piano, showing thus early not only a perception 
of rhythmical sounds, but an appreciation of 
melody. 

In all attempts made to attract young children's 
notice and train their sense perceptions, we must 
avoid arousing in them strong sensations of either 
pleasure or pain. The effect of all the communi- 
cations established between our outward sur- 
roundings and our brains is to create a little shock 
or thrill in the centre of our being and arouse one 
of three feelings: pleasure, pain, or mental grati- 
fication; the last of which is the more neutral 
feeling, the one that makes us recognize things 
without their affecting our personal consciousness. 

The more of this neutral territory there is in 
our brains'; the more nerve fibres we have able to 
convey to us impressions that produce mild satis- 
faction without the sharper touch of pleasure or 
pain; the better balanced creatures we are, the 
more highly developed, civilized men and women 
we are; the more useful to others, the pleasanter 
to ourselves. The capacity for this thinking im- 
pressibility is something which has grown up in 
man along with his all-around physical develop- 
ment. Animals and the lower orders of men know 
nothing apart from what they love or fear. The 
more animal-like we are, the more our ideas are 
74 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

colored by liking or dislike; and this is exhaust- 
ing-. 

A high order of genius may be accompanied by 
such an unstable, unreliable set of nerves that they 
send every impression rushing to the seats of 
pleasure or pain, and the owner is perpetually in 
a state of emotional disturbance. He gets worn 
out prematurely, not because he has too many 
nerves, or that they are too active, but because 
they are like a mass of raw soldiers, disorderly and 
in need of drill. The artistic temperament is pe- 
culiarly liable to become the prey to such disturb- 
ances, not so much owing to any defect inhering 
in its own constitution, as to its escape from the 
wholesome discipline of regular muscular exertion 
early in life. I should be among the first to de- 
plore a system that aimed to draw off the finer 
mental energies into the routine of manual work. 
Our natural poets, artists, and inventors are en- 
titled to such freedom as birds crave, and the child 
who shows signs of possessing such gifts ought to 
receive an education entirely in accord with his 
instinctive needs. 

But unless these superior organizations are en- 
dowed with strength of body, their careers will be 
short and their success in life aborted. It was 
Emerson who declared that " the artist needs a 
75 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

frolic health." And certainly it would be for the 
good of all mankind if its prophets and law-givers 
were all perfectly sane and well-balanced; free 
from the morbid streaks which inundate us con- 
stantly with floods of pessimism and eccentric phi- 
losophies. 

The emotional nature must not be allowed to 
begin its sway too soon. The greatest considera- 
tion in all the physical code of the nursery is to 
keep the young child in a state of intelligent calm. 
The gradual unfolding of his intellect should give 
him a sense of peaceful enjoyment. Instead of 
being lulled or titivated, the infant should be per- 
mitted from the first a reasonable degree of activ- 
ity unaccompanied by excitement. Who has not 
seen a baby breathless between laughter and cry- 
ing while being tossed up in the air by some 
thoughtless person? Or stimulated to undue de- 
lights by noisy, romping visitors? Let us be care- 
ful not to start emotional life running too rapidly 
in our little ones, for their nerves are so extremely 
unstable that acute pleasure is often followed by 
pain, and a few rapid transitions of this kind are 
sufficient to destroy good mental balance. 

The best company a baby can have is a little 
child. There is between these some peculiar bond 
of affinity, a mutual comprehension which renders 
76 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

their contact wholesome. Grown people uncon- 
sciously exact too much of the very young; their 
very looks are charged with meanings that tease 
and bewilder. The baby often shows a relief and 
joy that are significant at the entrance into his 
presence of a small child, whose merriment is in- 
nocent and simple, nearer his level than the stiff, 
experimental makeshifts at companionship at- 
tempted by older people. Live pets are his nat- 
ural playfellows, also. A baby commonly likes 
a cat, more perhaps than any other animal. But 
someone should be near when he is playing with 
it to ensure mutual good treatment. If the kitten 
has claws the baby has yet to learn that it has 
preferences, also, for not being held by the neck. 

In general, the nearer his associations are 
brought down to his own intellectual status, the 
more wholesome is the atmosphere for a voung 
child. It is notable that " only children " are apt 
to be precocious — and nervous. Their minds are 
kept on the stretch by continually trying to com- 
prehend what is beyond them. 

Hence, it is exceedingly necessary for a child 
who is much by himself to pass a great portion of 
his time out-of-doors. In a garden, if possible. 
Do not let us be too eager to instruct him. In- 
deed, it is doubtful whether any other instruction 
77 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

is admissible than the truthful answering of a 
child's questions. The natural world contains 
stimulants enough to his curiosity, and the sight 
of bees, birds, and insects, the watching of growing 
plants and vegetables will set him off on quests 
which it will keep our wits busy to follow. 

Life in garden and field is the ideal life for a 
young child. He loves to handle stones, dirt, and 
seeds, finding out their qualities in this course of 
object lessons, and learning wisdom as through 
the months he listens to " Nature's serial story," 
which makes for him a perfect melody. After 
awhile his judicious mother will help him to bind 
together his scattered facts in their beautiful rela- 
tioning chain, showing him the how and why after 
he has found out for himself that things are. That 
shrewd observer, Samuel Smiles, notes that Nat- 
ural History studies have a peculiarly calming ef- 
fect upon the mind. Naturalists usually live long 
and are remarkable for their insensibility to the 
ordinary trials and tribulations of life. So, chil- 
dren who are nervous, fretful, and selfish may be 
weaned from their peevishness by having their at- 
tention turned to interesting natural objects. Let 
them make collections of shells, if happily they 
pass a vacation at the seashore; or ferns, bees, 
butterflies, quartz, if in the country. It matters 
78 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

not what, so they are interested in their sub- 
ject. 

In all this we are training the child's nerves, so 
that those which are intellectual shall gain control 
over those which are emotional. The supremacy 
of intellectual nerves means harmony with our en- 
vironment, self-control, right relations with our 
fellow creatures. The sooner they become strong 
and vigorous, the better for the individual. And 
their development is through proper exercise of 
sense perceptions and the consequent growth of 
judgment; while the lawless tendencies of the emo- 
tional nervous system are checked by strengthen- 
ing and training the muscular system. Our aim 
is not, however, in this connection, to make the 
muscles themselves strong and enlarge them by 
special exercise, but to secure exactness and pre- 
cision of motion. Drill is the best possible offset 
to impulsiveness and unreasonableness. Mutinies 
in the army and navy are generally suppressed 
through impelling the revolted soldiery back into 
their habit of obedience. They cannot help obey- 
ing commands; their heads, arms, and legs con- 
form to regular usages before the men know what 
they are doing. 

In every occupation in life drill is serviceable, 
although the nervous temperament objects to it, 
79 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

merely because its function is to do away with 
nervousness. The ideal home education implies 
such a judicious physical training, begun in in- 
fancy, that even the child of naturally overbal- 
anced emotional nature shall never realize that he 
has a nervous temperament. What a demoraliz- 
ing influence in a household is a nervous mother; 
and how much more common they are than in the 
calmer times when there was less steam and more 
horse-power! 

The general complaint now among women of 
the more cultured class is that they are hurried 
and driven, and fretted almost out of their lives 
by the demands upon their time and strength. 
The demands of modern life tax us heavily even 
in the matters of mere existence, for the aim of 
all improvements in our modes of daily living is 
variety rather than ease, and all work that has 
seemingly been laid aside as a bygone hardship 
has really been transformed from our hands to 
our brains. We owe to the ingenuity that has in- 
troduced complicated inventions into our houses 
little thanks, except for the items of daintiness and 
refinement. There has come to the mother no 
lessening of care; no lifting of the burden of re- 
sponsibility. 

And yet with this undiminished responsibility 
80 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

upon her, a modern woman feels that she must 
keep abreast of the times by undertaking numer- 
ous outside occupations that are absorbing- 
enough to furnish work for persons with nothing 
else in the world to do. She must know a little 
of all the arts and sciences, must belong to several 
clubs, keep up with fashions in social matters, un- 
derstand her husband's business in order to steer 
the ship herself in case he becomes incompetent, 
and lastly, superintend her children's education. 
The last is, in itself, a life-full. And is it not the 
most important, the most necessary item of all? 

I have an idea that true motherhood is so great 
and magnificent a function that a lifetime of 
training is essential to its right fulfilment; and that 
girls should be trained for it from infancy. Ay, 
and the training for fatherhood should begin with 
the boys while they are in their cradles! 

What is the first quality essential to a good 
parent? Self-control: the subordination of all his 
impulses to his judgment. And is not this same 
quality the basis of individual happiness and use- 
fulness? When we are educating our child's 
senses, muscles, and nerves to obey his will, we 
are, therefore, training him not only for his own 
harmonious development as an individual, but for 
his highest function as a member of society. The 
81 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

consummation of right training is to enable the 
young person to govern himself. Hence, our first 
efforts must be directed to the point of getting 
the child to realize what he is trying to do, and 
then to concentrate his energy upon the act, by 
an exercise of his own will. This is self-subordina- 
tion, obedience to law and order, and not to a 
parent's arbitrary command. 

Our present-day education recognizes this prin- 
ciple, and indeed makes it the very foundation of 
character training, beginning in the kindergarten. 
I wonder if most mothers, watching a class of 
children engaged in some of the pretty little finger 
games, directed by a teacher, does not think them 
a nonsensical but harmless pastime, not dreaming 
of the use of these muscle movements in teaching 
the child attention, precision, and judgment? It 
requires considerable exercise of brain power for 
the child to move his fingers, head, and feet — not 
in a random, aimless way — but in accord with 
some idea which certain motions symbolize. And 
one may single out in a class of kindergarten chil- 
dren the ones who are skilful in making specified 
movements as those who are most educable, 
while the wandering gaze and listless movements 
of others indicate as surely mental organizations of 
a poorer quality. 

82 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

In my opinion no part of the kindergarten 
schedule is more valuable than the calisthenic ex- 
ercises. A skilful teacher makes them of incalcul- 
able value as a method of what one of our most 
excellent writers upon children's physical culture 
calls brain training. He says, " Training and guid- 
ing brain action and mental action should precede 
instruction, and is the principal object to be aimed 
at in the earliest years." This brain training " con- 
sists in getting the little pupil to look at objects 
and choose one slightly unlike the others, from a 
mass; to feel weights and sizes, comparing those 
having different weights as he holds them, separ- 
ately, in his hands." With nervous children it is 
especially desirable to avoid much talking, and in- 
duce them to go through little experiments and 
arrive at results by themselves, as this getting 
knowledge by one's own unaided efforts calms 
and quiets the nerves by exercising the judg- 
ment. 

A child's judgment is most healthily exercised 
upon the activities of plays involving muscular 
motions of a regular, rhythmical character. There 
is real value in many of the old-fashioned ring 
games that seem the spontaneous outcome of the. 
play instinct. All recreations that exact obedi- 
ence of the body to a plan existing in the mind, 
83 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

are to be regarded as belonging to education. 
Little children do not at first recognize any plan, 
but imitate the motions of their elder playmates. 
Gradually, a mental impression builds upon mus- 
cular movements, and presently they begin to 
criticise, to make improvements, to get up new 
plays founded upon the old one. A long step is 
here taken in mental development, but many chil- 
dren stop short of it, not having the constructive 
imagination. 

Were it not for the instinct of children to train 
their own muscles by play, how little physical edu- 
cation would fall to their lot! Reflecting upon 
this, the situation of an only child, reared in the 
city, becomes alarming. It appears almost inevit- 
able that the muscular system of such a child will 
remain undeveloped for lack of proper exer- 
cise. 

Every muscle in the body needs exercise, yet 
how few get it! Walking and running are not 
enough for our little ones; they need arm-swing- 
ing, hip movements, finger exercises, and, in fact, 
all the varied and complicated movements of a 
perfect course of calisthenics. The tools of the 
gymnasium, dumb-bells, indian clubs, etc., are not 
to be generally recommended. They tend to de- 
velop strength of muscle rather than flexibility 
84 



EDUCATING THE NERVES 

and what may be termed bodily intelligence. I 
would rather have parents pursue at home with 
their children the lighter calisthenics of the Swed- 
ish system, which every parent ought to under- 
stand in part, sufficiently to go through the ele- 
mentary exercises. 

Any good system of light calisthenics, pursued 
regularly for a little while every day, is extremely 
beneficial. In good weather, and if one is happy 
enough to live where he can command the use of 
a yard, the proper place for such calisthenics is 
out-of-doors. They then become twice as exhilar- 
ating, and a young person derives more enjoyment 
both from the fresh air and the sense of freedom. 

For special sense-training, with a view to reflex 
action upon the nerves, few things in my estima- 
tion excel archery. Boys and girls should be 
taught to shoot at a mark with bows and arrows 
as soon as they can draw the bow. Nothing gives 
better training in precision, accuracy of vision, 
and self-restraint than archery. It used to be 
highly lauded as a branch of physical education, 
but now we have almost forgotten it. In the days 
of Cyrus of Macedon almost the whole education 
of a Persian lad consisted in learning " to draw 
the bow and to speak the truth." It is not by ac- 
cident that the two are wed in thought. Accuracy 
85 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

of aim, accuracy of thought, accuracy of speech — 
must there not follow from such a training as this 
complete control of will and judgment over 
nerves? 

86 



CHAPTER IV 
NATURE'S SWEET RESTORER 

"Most persons sleep far too little. This is true as to adults, but 
to a much larger extent of children. It is hardly possible to over- 
estimate the good effects arising from an abundance of sleep upon the 
brain of a child.— Henry Putnam Stearns." 

The first thing a person naturally does upon 
entering the world is to fall asleep. Obstetricians 
differ as to whether an infant participates to any 
extent in the distress of the mother, but there is 
no question but that he shares her fatigue. Rest 
is peremptorily required. If a baby is carefully 
managed during the early stages of existence, un- 
til the habit of sound and regular sleep is well es- 
tablished, there will be comparatively little trouble 
for him after that. 

It is a fortunate thing when a child is born in 
the morning, for then the hour at which he will 
give most trouble comes at the time people are 
ready to bestow due attention upon him; for it is 
very probable that as the clock hands move 
S7 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

around to that same hour upon the second day 
or night, the baby will wake. Should he be born 
at two or three o'clock in the morning, great 
pains must be taken to steer him past this uneasy 
period until he comes to sleep through it. Babies 
may be trained to perpetual restlessness by being 
taken up and fed at irregular, or too frequent in- 
tervals during the night. Even from the begin- 
ning it is enough that an infant have food twice 
between sundown and dawn, and at six months 
of age a healthy child should sleep the night 
through from, say, ten o'clock till daybreak. 

By this time the habit of sound sleep ought to 
be well established in his life. Careful mothers 
will secure the right conditions in the bedroom, 
among the chief of which are the exclusion of 
light and the admission of fresh air. What an ab- 
surdity it is to accustom a young child to go to 
sleep in a brightly lighted apartment! It is doing 
violence to his natural instinct, which associates 
darkness with repose. During the first month or 
so, when there is need for the nurse to get up 
several times during the night, it may be well to 
have a light burning in an adjoining room, and 
the communicating door open, to avoid awkward 
and uncertain movements in the dark. But it is 
a better plan to have by one's bedside the means 



NATURES SWEET RESTORER 

of making a light instantaneously, and exclude 
artificial lights, as an accompaniment of sleep, 
from the very first. 

Ventilation without draughts must be secured. 
No special directions can be given for this, because 
every house has its own special facilities and limi- 
tations. Mothers must bear in mind that pure air 
around the sleeping child is absolutely essential, 
and arrange for it. No one would be so reckless 
as to open a window of a baby's bedroom on a 
cold winter's night, but a window of an adjoining 
room or of a hall may be opened, and fresh air 
admitted by doorway or transom. And at other 
seasons than winter the window of the nursery it- 
self may be opened, and the child's bed protected 
by a screen. One thing is very important. The 
nursery must be thoroughly aired before the little 
one enters it for the night. Often babies are rest- 
less and long in going to sleep because the atmos- 
phere is impure. 

A moderately hard bed is better than one that 
is very soft. But it must be smooth. A thin hair 
mattress with a light comfortable between it and 
the sheets, is best; although a baby may be very 
well arranged for during the first three months 
by putting plenty of eiderdown quilts in an or- 
dinary clothes-basket, which makes quite a nice 
89 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

nest for the wee bird. Always place the basket 
on two broad chairs to elevate it above the floor, 
as the air near a floor is less pure than that higher 
up. It is scarcely necessary to remind a mother 
that a rubber blanket is the inevitable covering for 
an infant's mattress, but that a thick, large pad 
(changed as often as it becomes the least bit damp, 
were it twenty times a day), must intervene be- 
tween this unwholesome rubber appliance and his 
own body. I should not suggest a word here 
about cleanliness but that in my own household, 
under the ever-watchful eyes of a resident phy- 
sician and of myself, I have detected efforts at 
carelessness in well-instructed attendants. Let 
every mother feel with her own hands the baby's 
sheets and wearing apparel, and be assured that 
they are warm, dry, and immaculately clean. 

Bed covering should be light and warm, but not 
quite so plentiful as a grown person likes, for 
young children are readily overheated. For the 
first year the nightgown will be very long, with 
a drawing string run in the hem, so it can be made 
into a bag; afterwards, footed night-drawers will 
be worn, of flannel in winter and cotton in sum- 
mer. Some persons object to thus keeping a little 
one's feet closely covered. If it were possible to 
prevent bedclothes being kicked off without im- 
90 



NATURES SWEET RESTORER 

prisoning a child too closely, an open gown might 
be worn. But I doubt the advisability of running 
any risk of cold feet. It is impossible for a person 
to go to sleep if his feet are cold, and if they be- 
come chilly he will awaken. Therefore, see that 
the little one's feet are warm before putting him 
to bed, and find out if they are warm when he 
wakes in the night. Sometimes gently chafing the 
feet will induce drowsiness in a wakeful person, if 
his wakefulness comes about through an over- 
flow of blood to the head. One advantage of a 
gown that covers the feet is that it does away 
with the old practice of having babies wear woolen 
socks at night. A plan that is decidedly objec- 
tionable. 

When the child grows too large for footed 
gowns, which require continual alterations to keep 
pace with his increasing size, give him gowns fall- 
ing several inches below his feet, for on cold nights 
it is a comfort to nestle one's feet in the folds of 
such an ample garment. It is far better to keep 
warm with coverings than for several children to 
be placed in one bed for this purpose. Even a 
young baby should never sleep in its mother's bed, 
but in a basket or crib close by. Every child 
should have his own bed, just as surely as he has 
a cup and spoon all to himself. If it is absolutely 
9 1 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

necessary for two to sleep together, great care 
must be exercised in the pairing. A nervous, deli- 
cate child will either suffer a depletion of his vital 
force from contact with a person of stronger phy- 
sique, or will absorb from that other more life 
force than can be spared. A sleeping person is a 
sort of parasite, bent upon appropriating to him- 
self all the vitality that can be had. Some chil- 
dren instinctively desire company, and it is hard 
to deny a tiny pleader who wakes at night and 
cries, "Take me into your bed!" I have many 
times stood beside one of these social little crea- 
tures with my arm about him till the sense of com- 
panionship soothed him off to the land of dreams, 
and then gently withdrew, leaving him to the 
wholesome isolation of his own crib; for migratory 
habits must not be encouraged. 

A child's sleeping room should be remote from 
the family sitting-room, for quiet at night is most 
essential. I know mothers who boast that noise 
never makes any difference to their children, that 
they have used them to it. But, although it 
may not appear to make any difference, the dreams 
of a sleeper are disturbed and his rest less refresh- 
ing when he is surrounded by exciting influences. 
It is far better for him, too, to be alone in the room 
than surrounded by lively, talkative persons, as 
92 



NATURE'S SWEET RESTORER 

their magnetism will very possibly affect him and 
exert a baneful influence upon his nervous system. 
Frequently, outward disturbances which are in- 
sufficient to awaken a sleeper will interfere with 
the soundness of his sleep and cause him to dream. 
These peculiar mental experiences, which no one 
has ever been able to explain satisfactorily, are oc- 
casioned, of course, by recollections of past acts, 
or else are suggested by something which mo- 
mentarily impresses the sleeping person. He will 
hear sounds and be conscious of a sudden increase 
of light, without knowing the reason of his sensa- 
tions. " Light " sleepers constantly mingle such 
impressions with dreams. The pelt of rain on the 
roof will send their mind off in the path of fa- 
tiguing adventures through a storm; thunder is 
as the cannon's roar, and in fancy they go to war 
and palpitate with fear and excitement. Some- 
times one will awaken, bathed in perspiration and 
trembling all over, from the effect of these imag- 
inary terrors. Usually, something in the physical 
condition of such sufferers renders them suscepti- 
ble to outward suggestions. Headache, indiges- 
tion, or the exhaustion consequent upon some 
former pain, prevents that complete insensibility 
of the brain which alone can be called sleep. 
When, accompanying the lethargy of the other 
93 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

faculties, there is alertness and anxiety on the part 
of some special faculty, which thus constitutes itself 
a watcher, repose is imperfect. It is often said that 
a person " sleeps with one eye open," but the dis- 
astrous effects of this uneasy method of slumber- 
ing are not keenly enough realized. Sleep is the 
most easily disordered function of our being. A 
single break in regularity seems at once to estab- 
lish a new habit that triumphs over the old one. 
If a sudden shock rouses one at one or two o'clock 
in the morning, the next morning, and probably 
for several successive mornings, he will have the 
annoyance of finding himself wide awake at the 
same hour without any seeming cause. Or, let 
him rise a couple of hours earlier one time, or 
spend half the night in mental activity, and nature 
exacts a repetition that will soon become weari- 
somely monotonous. 

No trouble is too great to conquer this ten- 
dency. By persistent effort the old habit of sound 
sleeping can be re-established, but it will have to 
come about gradually. Some night the victim 
will have the happiness of passing the appointed 
hour; and the next he will oversleep it by a longer 
interval, until nature has had her revenge, and al- 
lows the old routine to be resumed. But the bane- 
ful effects of a great shock, like being assaulted 
94 



NATURES SWEET RESTORER 

by burglars, may last for years, and be transmitted 
to future generations. Children who are constitu- 
tionally nervous in sleep, who start easily, awaken 
without apparent reason, and have many unpleas- 
ant dreams, have fallen heirs to disagreeable ex- 
periences of their parents. They must receive the 
wisest, tenderest care, or this great function of 
their being will never become normal. Their 
whole existence must be regulated with a view 
to securing their comfortable rest at night. For 
this is not to be attained by hurried efforts just 
before putting them to bed, but by painstaking 
preparations for many previous hours. 

The time to secure the night's rest is during 
the day. We must establish sensible rules for 
diet, exercise, and bathing, and conform to them. 
We must keep the little ones pleasantly occu- 
pied and protect them from excitements of all 
sorts; especially from disturbances of the imagina- 
tion. Never allow any one to frighten them; 
never threaten them yourself. I wonder how any 
parent with any imaginative faculty himself, can 
subject his child to the suffering consequent upon 
a threat of certain but deferred punishment, or can 
have the extreme cruelty to suggest probabilities 
of occult horrors in the shape of avenging deities. 
The child who dreams of a satanic presence and 
95 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

wakens in the dark to cower under his bed-cloth- 
ing, fearful of arousing his parents to protect him, 
lest they should either laugh at him or scold — oh, 
what a wretched little child is that! What tyran- 
nies, what dastardly falsehoods is some one of his 
guardians responsible for! 

More easily terrified than adults, the phantoms 
that visit children in sleep often cast over their 
minds a spell that is hard to throw off, and that 
may extend itself over years. I cannot help at- 
tributing to this persistency of youthful terrors 
the ascendancy the idea of a place of eternal 
punishment has attained over uneducated minds. 
With some unhappily constituted persons what 
was dreadful in their early experience lasts after 
what was lovely has passed away; and they fear 
this evil without ever having been imbued with a 
love for the good. 

Perhaps the most horrible play that was ever 
made upon a child's fancy was to show him a pic- 
ture of the " Devil," in propria persona. I trust 
that all such pictures have passed out of existence, 
but if one by chance survives among forgotten 
trash in the garret, lose no time in burning it. 
And representations of " ghosts " are quite as 
hideous and inexcusable. Adults who are per- 
fectly matter-of-fact, and quite sure of their nerves, 
96 



NATURE'S SWEET RESTORER 

may indulge in as many experiments as they 
choose; but nobody can estimate the extent of the 
mischief that may be wrought upon a child by 
talking to it of spirits and ghosts. For children 
do not readily confess to their frights and some- 
times suffer for a long time from a wrong that 
has been perhaps accidentally done to them, be- 
fore even a watchful mother finds out their 
trouble. 

" Dreams,'' remarked some writer, " only reflect 
our thoughts by day." But it is more correct to 
say that dreams take up the thoughts of the day 
and distort them into fantastic shapes, rendering 
beautiful or hideous that which was commonplace. 
Days filled with pleasant activity and watched 
over by kind and sympathetic eyes will usually be 
followed only by those casual, benefic visions which 
re-enforce good lessons and put young souls in 
tune with what is wholesome and happy. The 
ideally perfect sleep admits no dreams. But few 
persons sleep thus soundly at all times, even if it 
is their common and fortunate habit. Just before 
arousing in the morning we are often visited by 
these fleet visions which impress us out of such 
vast proportion with the length of their stay. So 
probable is it that sleepers will dream somewhat 
that our " good-nights " used to be followed by 
97 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

a recommendation to " pleasant dreams." When 
not occurring too frequently, night visions may be 
blessings. Sometimes the fancy, chained and de- 
pressed by day, may break for us by night a fet- 
tering bond, and send our spirits cantering abroad 
in some pretty frolic that lends the impulse to ac- 
tual adventures after we awake. 

Perhaps many of our adventures are planned 
while we sleep. Who knows? I think Dickens' 
" Doll's Dressmaker " must have dreamed of her 
" rows of bright-faced children " before ever the 
idea could have occurred to her to play at heaven 
on the old rag-shop house-top. If such things 
are true, we must concede that the effect of dreams 
are of importance to the moral character, and 
have a real influence over the spirits and health 
of the young. We may not only wish for our chil- 
dren " pleasant dreams," but take some pains to 
provide the material for them. 

All occupations and amusements which minister 
to their sense of beauty perform this office. Noth- 
ing, I think, quite so well as good music, and the 
sight of beautiful pictures. The old, old fashion 
of singing a little one to sleep is one of the sweet 
and dear ancient customs that can never pass 
away, for it is founded upon a human need. Nay, 
we may go further back. Mothers of the lower 
9 S 



NATURE'S SWEET RESTORER 

species use a sort of lulling note to their young; 
notably hens and cats. Instinctively the nurse 
chants to her infant charge, as she holds him in 
her arms, or, according to the mode now pre- 
scribed, lays him in his crib without rocking. It 
is still an open question whether a baby may be 
rocked to sleep. Each mother must decide it for 
herself. It is a privilege, an indulgence both for 
mother and baby that has its penalties. Once be- 
gun it can hardly be put aside, and however in- 
convenient, mother must rock the little one for 
the accustomed period, if she has let him get an 
inkling of the comfort of going to sleep in her 
arms. It is so pretty, so natural, that only born 
martinets can find it in their hearts to object to 
the practice. And where a mother has the sense 
to sway her rocking-chair very softly and lay baby 
in his bed as soon as he falls asleep, instead of 
holding him for an indefinite period, little harm is 
done. In fact, the only harm that can arise is that 
baby will cling to his privilege after he has grown 
so heavy as to be a burden. 

It is perhaps better to accustom him to his crib 
from the beginning, and let mother sit beside it, 
perhaps with her hand clasping his tiny hand, 
while she sings the lullaby that somehow sinks 
into the deepest cavern of memory and lives there, 

LofC. 9 9 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

strong and sweet, after all other infantile recol- 
lections have passed away. Do we not all remem- 
ber hearing some good-night song from our dear 
mother's lips when we were so little it seems im- 
possible that anything could have made a lasting 
impression upon us? We do not know or care 
what we ate or wore in the days when we toddled 
in laughing pursuit of our shadows upon the wall, 
but some other experiences wrote their record 
upon our hearts with those " fingers of light " 
whose touch is ineffaceable. If any human ex- 
perience is immortal, it is the hearing of sweet 
sounds. Not at random were somewhere coupled 
the words " haunting melodies." Strains of music 
heard we know not when or where enter in and 
take possession of our souls, accompanying us 
wherever we go; dumb perhaps where the world's 
action is loud and swift, but echoing again in our 
ears when we are in still places, so that it seems 
as if when we are quiet we are always called back, 
by imperious haunting melodies, to the past. 

Music about our cradles is our birthright, for 
the " hunger for sweet sounds " awakens in human 
beings almost as soon as that other hunger more 
readily recognized and appeased. The mother who 
can sing beautifully is gifted with the magical 
touch to soothe and charm her children in all their 



NATURE'S SWEET RESTORER 

varying moods. But the mother who can sing even 
passably may give great pleasure to her little ones, 
and every mother should try to cultivate her voice 
sufficiently to be able to learn a few simple songs. 
Indeed, this accomplishment is so indispensable 
that it seems as if nature exempted from maternal 
duties those women who are absolutely without 
the power of producing musical notes. Yet there 
are musical instruments which furnish a sort of 
substitute to the mother's song; sweet-toned 
little music boxes, and the mandolin or iEolian 
harp. 

It is an excellent idea to arrange one of these 
harps outside the nursery window, where the wind 
may play its wild, sweet melodies for the children's 
pleasure. One could scarcely fall asleep to the ac- 
companiment of more soothing sounds, unless he 
were " rocked in the cradle of the deep." 

After music, and later on in the little one's 
career, pictures influence his dreams. Hang the 
best reprint you can get of the Sichel Madonna, 
which all children love, over your child's bed, that 
it may salute his eyes the last thing at night and 
the first thing in the morning. Decorate the walls 
with pretty pastoral landscapes and figures; in 
color if possible, for youth loves color, and finds 
but cold comfort in black and white. Have either 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

a good paper on the wall or none. Plaster with a 
warm tone is the best background for the nursery 
picture-gallery, which will be a source of great de- 
light to the child if well chosen. 

A good plan is to tell a child some interesting 
stor y — invent it yourself if you can — and then buy 
one or more of the charming modern calendars 
full of child figures and flowers. Cut these out and 
tack them up on the wall, so arranged as to illus- 
trate your narrative, and make a sort of running 
accompaniment to it. So real and vivid do these 
pictures become to the child after a little while 
that possibly he will be discovered talking to them 
as he does to his dolls. An only child takes great 
comfort in pictures that have become thus per- 
sonified to his imagination. His bedroom is 
peopled with pleasant companions, and a quaintly 
social atmosphere spreads through it which may 
be perceptible even to the less delicate sense of his 
adult visitors. 

Surrounded thus with a cheerful and lovely at- 
mosphere the child should sleep well and dream 
sweetly, if his health is good and he has been sent 
to bed happy. 

The custom is almost obsolete now of sending 
children supperless to bed as a punishment. I 
wish I might hope that there was a general preju- 



NATURE'S SWEET RESTORER 

dice against ever sending them to bed miserable 
from any cause. But that is a step into the more 
humane future. All well-meaning parents who im- 
pulsively go contrary to their own light and knowl- 
edge, and visit what they term righteous retribu- 
tion upon refractory offspring, would do well to 
look back upon their own past life and recall the 
nights when they themselves were sent with stern, 
cold words, or perhaps humiliating punishment, up 
to lonely, dark bedrooms, to pass hours of bitter- 
ness. Miserable thoughts, dreary visions, heavy 
stupor from exhaustion, then a reluctant, unhope- 
ful awakening to a day whose light is fringed 
with traces of yesterday's sorrow. Must we, carry- 
ing out a rigid view of justice, visit the pecca- 
dilloes of youth with this heavy punishment? It 
will not make the boy a better man to go to bed 
sped by a father's or mother's frown. What may 
make him better is the surreptitious, heedless visit 
of a hot-headed, warm-hearted friend — sister, 
brother, or Bridget maybe — who drops a tear on 
his culprit's pillow and whispers a comforting word 
in his ear. 

All blessings light upon these soft hearts! Let 

us be good to our children. Let us send them to 

their night's repose forgiven of all offenses against 

us, cheered by the hope of sleeping away mistakes 

103 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

and entering when the sun rises upon a beautiful 
new day. 

It is pleasant to be awakened in the morning by 
the song of birds and the gentle rustling of leaves 
against our casements. And it is natural to be 
aroused by the slow stealing in of light till the 
broad sunlight effectually puts an end to slumber 
and impels us to leave our beds. A child should 
never be awakened in the morning by any other 
means than the admission of light into his bed- 
room. That is the only permissible way of arous- 
ing him, because it causes no shock. But it is a 
pity to have to awaken a little one at all. Most 
children sleep less than they ought. Tables are 
given specifying precisely how many minutes a 
person should pass in sleep, at any given age. But 
they are rather absurd. As well say precisely how 
much one should eat. Different persons need 
different amounts of both food and rest. In gen- 
eral, and speaking broadly, we may say that the 
first year of life should be chiefly passed in sleep, 
and up to six or seven years a child should sleep 
half the time: that is, twelve hours every night. 
Then ten hours suffices till maturity is reached. 

But comparatively few young persons, espe- 
cially those between ten and twenty, get anywhere 
near their proper amount. The common practice 
104 



NATURE'S SWEET RESTORER 

of learning lessons in the evenings interferes. The 
natural tendency is for the brain to become less 
and less active as the day advances. In the morn- 
ing it is fresh and all the faculties alert; or they 
should be. The forenoon is the proper period for 
hard intellectual work; afternoons for efforts in- 
volving less strain upon memory, and evenings for 
relaxation. What folly, then, to reverse this rule 
of nature and set tasks for children to accomplish 
at the time when their energy is at its very lowest 
ebb and only a determined exertion of will power 
can enable them to command their attention! 

Every parent should resolutely prohibit evening 
study. If a child must learn lessons at home, have 
him devote the first hour of the morning to his 
work. One hour then is worth three at night. The 
child who is able to learn lessons at night without 
difficulty is in a dangerous mental condition. 
Instead of being encouraged, such a disposition 
should be checked, and every effort made to re- 
store a natural balance of mind which will make 
drowsiness customary upon the approach of the 
hour for retiring. Even exciting or deeply interest- 
ing games that require concentration of mind 
ought to be discouraged. Some children of nerv- 
ous temperament go into every occupation with 
all their might, and are unable to stop thinking 
i°5 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

when the necessity for thinking is over. What- 
ever they do just before going to bed pursues them 
into the realm of sleep. I remember vividly that 
when I was about eight years old a game or so of 
" checkers " in the evening made me a victim to 
those lively discs moving upon a board half the 
night. " Counting games " are pernicious, and 
literature of an exciting character must be barred 
out. If possible, have music in the house every 
evening, or games and reading that put no strain 
upon the mind. There should be a sort of gradual 
transition, after the child's supper, from wakeful- 
ness to sleep. He should not be allowed to sit up 
and yawn, fighting off the approach of sleep, as 
some little ones are allowed to do. 

In well-regulated households there is a regular 
hour for retiring, and the hour set for young 
children is about sundown. Let an hour or so 
intervene between a light supper and bed-time, for 
although there is a general impression that a good 
meal assists one in getting to sleep, the best au- 
thorities state that sleep is really less beneficial to 
a person when digestion is going on. One should 
not go to bed hungry, however, and a glass of milk 
is quite permissible, even at midnight, if there is a 
craving for it. Sometimes, when there is a bad 
habit of waking in the middle of the night, such a 
106 



NATURE'S SWEET RESTORER 

mild sedative is necessary. A sip of cold water, the 
turning over of a hot pillow, or a little patting of 
his shoulders will often soothe a restless child. If 
it is possible, get such an one sound asleep again 
before he is fairly awake, when he stirs or frets at 
night, for the habit of broken slumber should be 
stopped in its incipiency. 

Children must be trained also to fall asleep as 
soon as they can after their heads touch their 
pillows. Some imaginative little ones love to 
romance in the dark, and loose the rein of fancy 
for wild careers after they are left alone for the 
night. Let the mother keenly observe her active- 
minded child, and nip such tendencies in the bud 
by explaining the laws of rest and growth, and 
cautioning him that he will never get his proper 
growth unless he gets enough sleep. All children 
want to be big, and I have found this appeal quite 
effectual. A mite of four or five may be made to 
understand many of the rules of health and become 
interested in obeying them. Any child old enough 
to indulge himself with " castle-building " is old 
enough to understand the reasons that exist 
against practising the pastime. Do not try to turn 
the current of his mental activity by recommend- 
ing him to count. I don't know how such an absurd 
practice could ever have become popular. When 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

one counts, he either forces himself to attend to his 
counting and so exerts his will, or he counts me- 
chanically and leaves his mind free to go about 
other work at its pleasure. All mechanical de- 
vices for going to sleep are useless. The only sure 
resource is forgetfulness, and this can only come 
through inducing nature to concentrate her energy 
on some one of the bodily functions, so that she 
will leave the brain to repose. The stomach is 
commonly made the sufferer, but a better way is to 
exact increased duty of the lungs. 

Every young child should be taught the art of 
deep breathing, and trained to draw full, long 
breaths when he lays his head upon his pillow at 
night. No other device is so certain or swift in its 
influence. To take long, deep breaths with the eyes 
closed is to simulate sleep, and the acting pres- 
ently becomes a reality. I have seen mere babies, 
before they could talk, learn by imitation to put 
themselves to sleep through the practice of deep 
breathing, and the sleep so induced is the most 
wholesome and sweet that it is possible to have, 
because it is obtained in a perfectly natural way. 

The sleep induced by narcotics is stupor, and 
although there are times when it is necessary for 
grown persons to resort to them, I know of noth- 
ing that can excuse their use on behalf of children. 
108 



NATURE'S SWEET RESTORER 

Every so-called " soothing syrup " is essentially a 
poison. If you do not care at all for your child's 
welfare, if you would as soon as not destroy its 
mind, dwarf its physical growth, and impair its 
future usefulness and happiness, then dose it 
liberally with some one of the " soothing syrups " 
advertised in reliable journals as the friend of 
weary mothers. 

It is no argument in favor of narcotics for our 
grandmothers to say that they used them with 
their own children and it never hurt them at all. 
Injuries lie latent till their full time. The future is 
not yet revealed, and our children's children are to 
suffer for our grandparents' physical sins. 

There is no royal remedy for insomnia. Victims 
are seeking it with gold and with tears the world 
over. The only cure for the disease is a return to 
right ways of living and to harmonious relations 
with nature. Human constitutions are very 
adaptable and can be made to get used to almost 
any set of circumstances, but they cannot so easily 
be made to get unused to them. Night-nurses and 
night-watchmen are not able, when they wish to 
resume ordinary habits, to throw off the tyranny 
of a practice to which they have accustomed their 
constitutions. And those who are given to taking 
their pleasure at unseasonable hours lose, after a 
109 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

while, the power to sleep at the natural period. 
They rob the golden hours of the day without 
avail, for daytime sleep is no effectual substitute 
for night-rest. There are sound reasons, based 
upon scientific investigations, for declaring that the 
best sleep a person gets is that obtained between 
nine o'clock in the evening and midnight. Pleas- 
ure seekers and students who burn their electricity 
into the wee snia" hours need not expect to repair 
their spent energies by daytime " napping." it is 
not only a silly practice but I think it is a positively 
injurious one. 

Every other newspaper article upon health that 
one meets nowadays recommends women to take 
an afternoon nap. So earnestly is the suggestion 
made that one would infer that its infringement 
involves impiety. Elderly persons, who incline to 
slide off easily into little spells of unconsciousness, 
may indulge themselves in naps without injurious 
effects. And babies must, of course, supplement 
their nightly repose with several hours of day- 
time sleep. But an adult in average good health 
cannot afford to bring upon himself the heaviness 
and dullness that usually follows upon the siesta. 
Rest, upon a couch, is refreshing and rational, es- 
pecially if quarter of an hour in a reclining posi- 
tion is followed by a minute or so of deep breath- 
no 



NATURES SWEET RESTORER 

ing with a window open. If a person lay down 
for a few minutes at a time, several times a day, 
he would be the better for it. But let him not 
court unconsciousness, unless he wishes his night's 
repose to be broken and unrefreshing. 

I would never oblige even a young child to sleep 
in the daytime if he decidedly objected to doing 
so. Children differ much in this respect, and some 
little ones like an afternoon nap up to the age of 
five or six years; especially in warm weather. 
When the practice does not lessen their quantity 
of night sleep, they may be indulged. But there 
are others again who renounce napping as they 
acquire the use of language, and become, in a 
sense, little men and women when they are two or 
three years old. We should be sure that children 
are moved by a natural impulse and not a mere 
whimsy, and then let nature have her way. For 
it is a peculiar fact that persons require just the 
amount of sleep essential to their own constitu- 
tions, and are unable to take more. An hour's 
sleep accidentally obtained in the day is subtracted 
from their usual allotment at night. 

I found that this invariably occurred with one 
of my own little ones. The only time he " nap- 
ped " was when driving, and his night's sleep was 
always shortened by precisely the period of that 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

somnolency induced by this lulling motion in the 
open air. 

When children are ill it is desirable for them 
to sleep as much as they can, during the day as 
well as the night. Many minor ailments are cured 
by giving the patient a warm bath and putting 
him to bed for twenty-four hours. In case of fever 
sleep may sometimes be induced by laying wet 
cloths (always covered securely by dry ones) on 
top of the sufferer's head, as a heated vertex pro- 
duces insomnia. Spare no pains to make a child's 
room attractive and restful to the eye, for during 
any sickness a slight trace of ugliness in furniture 
and wall-paper becomes very annoying. Figured 
wall-papers sometimes drive nervous patients to 
the verge of dementia, as they cannot tear their 
attention from the hectagons or curlycues on 
which their wandering gaze has once become 
fastened. 

Put a flower on a stand near the sick child's bed. 
Have his room in dainty order, and adjust the 
light not as you think it ought to be, but as he 
wants it, for nobody is a good judge of another 
person's needs in this respect. Whatever gar- 
ments have been worn during the day should be 
exchanged for a different set at night; and it is 
well to keep two sets of sheets and pillow slips in 



NATURE'S SWEET RESTORER 

use, transferring the child temporarily to a couch 
or chair, if well enough to be moved, while his bed 
is freshened for the night. Then muffle him 
warmly, and let plenty of fresh air into the room, 
even if it be midwinter, for his lungs must be 
supplied with pure oxygen if he is to get well. 

Everything that is essential for a child's com- 
fort should be done before his mother leaves him 
for the night. Bedclothes carefully adjusted, a 
drink of cold water given if it is wanted, a little 
good-night song breathed softly by her voice — 
the sweetest in the world to him — and then with 
a kiss and a reminder to lie still and draw deep 
breaths, the mother should glide away, declining 
to enter into any after conversation, or answer 
any calls, unless some accident makes her pres- 
ence necessary. For sleep comes to the child who 
has nothing else in view. 

"3 



CHAPTER V 
NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH. 

" That over-feeding and under-feeding are both bad is a truism. 
Of the two. however, the last is the worst. As writes a high au- 
thority, ' the effects of casual repletion are less prejudicial, and more 
easily corrected, than those of inanition.' Add to which, that where 
there has been no injudicious interference, repletion will seldom 
occur." — Spencer. 

Children need more food in proportion to 
their size than grown persons, for two reasons: 
besides supplying the present demand of the body 
for nutriment, they must lay in a surplus for the 
purpose of growth, and they are also obliged to 
use some to furnish heat; because bodies cool 
more quickly than large ones, as a relatively 
greater surface is exposed to the air. 

So, whenever a little one's clothing is insuffi- 
cient to protect him from the inclemencies of the 
weather, he must appropriate a large proportion of 
the food he eats to the exigent duty of keeping 
up his bodily temperature. After passing hours 
in over-heated apartments, persons have little ap- 
n 4 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

petite; the system refuses food which will go to- 
ward making more warmth. But exposure to 
keen outdoor air quite alters their disposition in 
regard to eating, and if they have been out for 
an unusually long time, as during a ten-mile 
sleigh-ride, they are unlikely to refuse anything 
that is offered them. Instinct, however, leads 
them to prefer oyster stew to oranges. A healthy, 
unspoiled appetite is a trustworthy guide, and will 
choose the kind of food the system needs; the 
heavier, more substantial kinds when there is a 
great demand for heat-producing substances, and 
the lighter varieties when it is desirable to cool 
the temperature of the blood without diminishing 
the strength. 

It will be admitted that there is an intimate re- 
lationship between the kind of clothing one wears 
and the sort of food he eats. A person who is 
habitually over-clothed craves less food than one 
who is clothed too lightly. The ragged boy who 
braves wind and storm to bring our daily news- 
paper to our door, never needs a second invita- 
tion to partake of a meal, although the fur-en- 
veloped coachman ministers to his fancied rather 
than to his real necessities by his excessive indul- 
gence at table. 

Common sense suggests that we take into con- 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

sideration the individual needs of each child in our 
family, when arranging the nursery table. One 
little one may have a natural tendency to accumu- 
late fat, another is manifestly inclined toward lean- 
ness, one is full-blooded, another one anaemic. 
Do not treat all these children alike, pursuing a 
relentless policy of making no distinctions. Na- 
ture makes distinctions, and we had best follow in 
her footsteps. Use judgment in clothing these 
children of different constitutions; for the anaemic 
one, with a poor circulation, provide an additional 
covering; allow the full-blooded child to dispense 
with the wrap he finds superfluous. For plump 
child and thin one get such articles of wearing ap- 
parel as the necessities of the case indicate. And 
do not insist upon their all being comfortable in a 
temperature which, according to the thermometer, 
is right for a perfectly normal human being. 

There are very few such. Nor is any normal 
human being normal at all times. When a child 
complains of feeling cold, believe him. Probably 
he knows how he feels. Put him in the way of 
getting warm, either by supplying a drink of hot 
milk or hot water, or an additional garment, as 
you may deem best. But it is well to recollect 
that the great majority of all diseases begin with 
a chill; and a chilly feeling is not to be neglected. 
Ji6 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

A sudden chill should be treated instantly by a 
hot bath and a hot drink, and quick retirement to 
bed till the patient feels quite comfortable again. 

If there is one word in the language which 
covers the whole field of good health, it is this 
word " comfortable "; which we heed so little and 
deny so persistently. When a person is comfort- 
able, his health is safe. When he is clothed so as 
entirely to satisfy his instinct for warmth and free- 
dom of movement, he is clothed appropriately; 
when the temperature of his room is adjusted to 
his need for pure air without chilling currents, it is 
precisely right for him, whatever the thermometer 
may say. And when his table contains food suffi- 
cient in quantity, right in quality, and appetizing 
in its preparation, he may partake of it at his 
pleasure without attending to the comments of 
neighbors who like something altogether dif- 
ferent. 

There are, of course, perverted tastes and de- 
sires which cannot safely be taken as guides. 
Vanity and emulation lead badly trained children 
to defy their own instincts in order to do as their 
companions do. In the matter of clothing, the 
mother who defers to fashions has much to con- 
tend with. Once let little ones who are naturally 
fastidious and refined see an inclination upon the 
117 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

part of their elders to wear what is stylish rather 
than what is sensible, and they will smother their 
own feelings and declare that tight shoes are a 
good fit and a heavy, over-trimmed hat light on 
their heads as a feather. Nothing is more easily 
ruined by injudicious treatment than an instinct. 
Let us not tamper with our children's. We need 
them to come to our own aid. When true and 
direct, they are infallible guides, and we should 
constantly teach a child to interpret their sugges- 
tions in a straightforward manner. No matter 
about style, or what our friends wear. Comfort 
before all. When the sense of beauty is rightly 
educated, there is little fear of any one making of 
himself an ugly spectacle because he chooses 
rather to conform to the dictates of common 
sense than to those of fashion, in selecting his 
wearing apparel. 

I have of deliberate purpose placed these obser- 
vations upon clothing here. We are apt to forget 
that, apart from considerations of decency, the pri- 
mary object of clothes is to come to the aid of 
food by supplying heat to the body. Whenever, 
by reason of poor judgment or poor circumstances, 
the supply of clothing is not properly adjusted to 
bodily needs, suffering ensues to the digestive or- 
gans through an improper supply of food being 
11S 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

taken into the system. Insufficient clothing neces- 
sitates the taking of more food than can be readily 
digested; while excessive clothing, by creating an 
over-amount of heat, deceives the person into be- 
lieving that he must take less food than he really 
needs. Therefore, a mother should see that her 
children are comfortably and appropriately clad, 
before she can allow herself to give due weight 
to their feelings as an indication of wholesome, 
natural appetite. Then she must discriminate be- 
tween the different members of her family and 
give to each one the kind of food especially needed 
by his or her particular system. All children 
should have some heat-supplying and some tissue- 
supplying food, but the quantity of each sort must 
vary with the individual. Lean Johnny, shooting 
up like a May-pole, merely whets his appetite 
with bread and jam. He needs something to build 
with. I recollect my mother's relating of a very 
tall brother that, in his boyish days, the negroes 
on the old plantation remarked, " Marse Will eat 
so much it made him po' to tote it! " 

And another young giant of the family invari- 
ably responded to her inquiry of how he did, with, 
" Hungry, sissy, hungry! " 

No doubt the requirements of incipient six feet 
seem enormous to delicate little mothers. Our 
"9 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

girls nowadays tend to grow tall, too, for which 
we should be duly thankful. Much outdoor exer- 
cise and the great consumption of energy exacted 
by modern life make robust appetite a rational pos- 
session. Active brains must have food propor- 
tioned to the work they do, as well as active bodies, 
and while our young people are keeping up their 
strength, growing and using their brains con- 
stantly, have they not good reason to feel a pretty 
strong desire for nourishing, palatable food? 

The two adjectives naturally couple. In order 
to be nourishing, food must be palatable. It is gen- 
erally recognized now that taste plays a part in 
digestion, and that food must taste good to a per- 
son before he can get the full benefit coming from 
it. There are innate preferences, the violation of 
which injures both health and temper. Hand-fed 
babies not seldom show strange discrimination in 
regard to their diet. Perhaps they associate dis- 
comfort with a kind of nourishment that does not 
agree with them; but I have known a baby reject 
successively, after a few trials, several foods that 
were supposed by every one to be the right thing, 
and settle down with satisfaction upon the one that 
ultimately approved by its good results the young- 
ster's judgment. All babies are not prophets, and 
they are liable to make mistakes, but it is pretty 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

certain that what an infant dislikes will disagree 
with it. 

The broad general rule formerly laid down that 
it is the duty of a mother to nurse her own infant 
has been revised by modern common sense to read 
thus: Healthy mothers whose milk agrees with 
their infants should nurse them; but delicate, ner- 
vous, or anaemic mothers had best substitute for 
their own milk some one of the excellent prepared 
foods now in the market to be added to pure cow's 
milk. In the first case the mother must tempor- 
arily subordinate her own individuality to the wel- 
fare of her child. For the time being she cannot 
look upon herself as an independent personage, 
free to pursue plans and act out her impulses. 
Lactation is a sort of continuing of gestation. 
Within her own body the mother is still manufac- 
turing the nutriment upon which the higher life 
as well as the lower life of her child depends. Her 
thoughts and acts day by day vitalize his latent 
character. Her moods are his providence. It is 
a holy and a fearful office, a responsibility women 
would not incur so lightly and carelessly if they 
realized its full extent. 

I doubt if we ever can. For science can scarcely 
reveal to us the secret nature has successfully 
hidden these thousands of years; what constituent 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

it is in the food we send to our stomach that quick- 
ens the thoughts of our brain, the emotions of our 
hearts. There is life and creative power in all food, 
but especially in milk fresh and warm from the 
veins of living creatures. No one, I think, has yet 
been led to make investigations in regard to it, 
but it seems to me probable that nurslings must be 
more intelligent and precocious than babies whose 
nourishment is drawn from a dead bottle. A child 
at the breast of a refined, cultured mother imbibes 
something more than food for his body ; he inhales 
with every breath an emanation from her person- 
ality, and her caresses, her affectionate gaze wrap 
him in an atmosphere of drowsy delight. 

It is rather unfeeling in Mr. Sully to term the 
preference of a nursling for his mother " cupboard 
love." Perhaps an understanding of the tender 
relation between a mother and a child who depends 
upon her for the breath he draws is something not 
given to any man. They perceive it in effect, but 
may not penetrate its divine mystery. 

What profanation for mothers to look upon the 
nursing of their infants as a merely animal function 
that may be relegated to any strong female person 
who offers herself as a " wet-nurse." It is a coarse 
term. Let us use " foster-mother " instead. That 
implies something more of the extended responsi- 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

bilities the relation involves, and will make us more 
careful to scrutinize the moral and mental qualifi- 
cations of the person we think of admitting into 
our nursery to stand in a closer attitude than our- 
selves to the child of our own flesh. Physicians 
generally say that if a mother is incapable of nurs- 
ing her own infant, the second choice is the foster- 
mother. There are sensitive and tender women 
who cannot bear the idea, and I will not say they 
are in the wrong. A child is sure to resemble in 
some ways all his life the woman whose milk has 
entered into his blood. A mother may well pause 
and ask herself whether the nurse in question is a 
model she is willing for her little one to found his 
character upon. No one may say what the extent 
of her influence will be; more or less, according to 
her temperament and the child's. Unconsciously, 
unintentionally, she will have something to do with 
shaping his destiny; but leaving this larger issue 
out, and considering the more immediate percep- 
tible one, she has an immense power over his 
health, his habits, and his present happiness. 
Should she be — however healthy and good-tem- 
pered and high-principled — slovenly or irregular 
or unpunctual in her ways, what misery may she 
not bring upon him! 

Almost sure to be drawn from the lower strata 
123 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

of society, she brings with her an obstinate prefer- 
ence for " natural " rather than enlightened 
methods of treating the child. Unless she can be 
induced cheerfully and willingly to conform to 
rules laid down by the mother, she should not be 
for an hour admitted into the house. The entire 
regime of the child must be governed by clock- 
like regularity. From the time he is born he 
should be " fed by the clock," and soon he will 
awaken almost to the minute in expectation of his 
meal. It is of the utmost importance to establish 
this regularity, and no " old-wife prejudices " 
must be permitted to laugh the idea down. 

There must be no sullen and reluctant yielding 
of settled opinions on the part of the foster- 
mother, but cheerful acquiescence. If she is dis- 
satisfied or half-hearted in her duties, her mood 
will react unfavorably upon her nursling. Let 
mothers select a nurse most carefully, then, if a 
nurse is to be hired; and once chosen and allowed 
to assume the care of the precious little one, treat 
her as a favored friend, and do not exchange her 
for another nurse unless some direful accident 
makes it necessary to do so. Keep her well and 
keep her happy. But, while you trust her, use some 
reserve in your confidence, and never relinquish a 
constant oversight over your own child. For 
124 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

the office of the nurse is but for a time, and she 
thinks of the present merely ; while you must think 
of the future and build for all time. 

If it is decided to bring up the child on milk from 
the bottle, let not that implement be thrust upon 
him prematurely. Even if the mother can only 
nurse him at her own breast for a few weeks — a 
few days — let baby have that initial comfort to his 
career in this rather hard world. Then, when the 
affectionate and refined mother finds it necessary 
to give place to — a cow, let her be careful of the 
quality of the cow! The old prejudice in favor of 
" one-cow's milk " for a baby is about over. The 
best authorities now say that thirty or forty cows 
are better than one. Individual defects are then 
neutralized, and there is less danger of some grief- 
stricken bovine mother, mad at the loss of her calf, 
poisoning the milk which is to furnish the nourish- 
ment of a human infant. 

In cities our milk comes to us so indirectly that 
all we can do is to select a reliable dairyman. 
Every possible precaution should be taken to get 
the milk of clean, well-cared-for animals. And 
except in the rare cases where pure milk agrees 
perfectly with the baby, it is best to add some va- 
riety of prepared food to it. Individual taste and 
experience must decide this matter. Milk by itself 
I2 5 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

has a tendency to produce a costive condition 
of the bowels. When this condition exhibits itself, 
let mothers and nurses be entreated to regulate it 
only through the administration of food and water. 
Avdid aperients. A teaspoonful of pure olive oil, 
sucked slowly from the finger of the nurse as she 
dips it into the saucer, may be administered to 
very young infants. When the child suffers from 
straining and the constipation is obstinate, a phy- 
sician ought to be consulted; and it is to be hoped 
that the dose he prescribes will not greatly harm 
the unfortunate little one. A good doctor said 
emphatically: " Costive people live to grow 
old if they do not commit suicide by taking 
physic." 

Mothers are often needlessly alarmed about 
constipation in children. It is usually quite amen- 
able to hygienic treatment. With small babies 
little can be done except to regulate their food 
and give them a little water to drink several times 
a day. But older children should be induced to 
take more outdoor exercise if they are inclined to- 
ward this trouble. Ordinarily, a glass of hot water 
morning and night is all the remedy that is re- 
quired. Constipation frequently comes of food 
being too dry, and as soon as children are old 
enough to eat fruit and vegetables, it is corrected. 
126 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

Considerable judgment must be exercised by- 
parents in bringing a child to the table for the first 
time. There is such a pleasure in seeing the way 
the cunning mite acts upon tasting novel dainties 
that one is tempted to be rash in supplying him 
with them. Now is the time to recollect that Tot 
is distrustful of a new dish, but that if we do not 
wish him to book it in his memory as a thing to be 
demanded again, we will be wiser not to experi- 
ment, for he may take an unconquerable fancy to 
something unwholesome and make both himself 
and the family unhappy by his efforts to get it. I 
know one small damsel who, being one time 
feasted with raisins, thereafter made life terrible 
to her anxious relatives by the persistency with 
which she followed in the wake of the great boxes 
of magnificent " London layers " constantly 
coming into the house. Instead of kindly and 
firmly denying her the things so harmful to in- 
fancy, these injudicious people tried subterfuge. 
They hid the raisins in a bureau in the garret. 
But unluckily a stem hung out. Little Miss Sharp- 
Eyes needed no explanation of that tell-tale bit of 
fibre when her wandering steps brought it within 
her view. Running from the garret to her mother's 
sitting-room, she said in a triumphant, shrill little 
treble : " Mamma, I spied dose raisins! Now, dive 
127 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

me my apron full! " I am sorry to say that she 
got it. 

If parents thoroughly realized their own im- 
mense privileges in commanding situations chil- 
dren enter for the first time, they would not lightly 
risk the chances of rebellion by suffering liberties 
they have no mind to continue. 

Rich, highly-seasoned foods are injurious to all 
children. Condiments and spices must be given 
very sparingly. Ginger cake is unwholesome 
merely on account of the spice and soda, but simple 
molasses cake is as palatable and not at all ob- 
jectionable. The general liking for sweets is not a 
perverted taste; it is a true instinct. Give chil- 
dren sugar and syrup, honey and fruit jellies. Give 
them delicate puddings, whipped creams and 
soufflees. What is relished is— other things being 
e q ua l — of most benefit. So we must consult indi- 
vidual taste; not giving Johnny potatoes if he 
craves only fruit, nor stuffing little Janet with oat- 
meal, upon general principles, when her peculiar 
constitution requires concentrated nourishment. 
The tasteless porridges that the hardier young- 
sters of our forefathers' days relished after their 
outdoor work and play are not as beneficial to our 
more nervous children. 

As little of the mineral element as possible 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

should enter into their food, as it tends to a pre- 
mature ossifying of the bony structure. Avoid an 
excess of salt. Such stimulants to the palate as 
mustard and pepper should also be kept away 
from young people. Ordinarily, they dislike arti- 
ficial acids, such as vinegar, until they are trained 
into liking them. So, do not offer a child pickles. 
Let him eat the natural acids in fruit and vegeta- 
bles, if he craves them. Once in a while a fever- 
ish little one will seize eagerly upon a lemon, and 
alternate sucks of the juice with wry faces; show- 
ing a need for acid fluids. Such a craving must 
be indulged, in a judicious manner, by allowing 
oranges, sherbets, and lemon jellies. Of course 
milk must not go in company with such meals. 
Many of the stomach disorders children suffer 
from are caused by injudicious mixtures of viands. 
ft is necessary to stop and consider whether 
articles go well together. Children should have 
variety. At different periods and seasons the)' 
need different sorts of foods, and the menu of the 
nursery table ought to be varied even from day 
to day. But it is not well to give them more than 
three or four articles at a meal. One kind of meat 
or fish, a vegetable, and a dessert make an agree- 
able dinner for a youthful palate. 

It goes without saying that all children under 
129 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

twelve years should dine in the middle of the day. 
A nice breakfast, a dainty, well-served dinner, and 
an early, light supper at least an hour and a half 
before retiring, should keep our little ones in 
flourishing health. " Eating between meals " is a 
matter of habit. Some children can do it with 
impunity, but others spoil their appetites for regu- 
lar meals by any " nibbling." Mothers must use 
their own discretion. I should never deny a 
hungry child a simple refection, but the proba- 
bility is that no want will be felt at irregular times 
if there is a proper, natural appetite at the usual 
meal times. Those children who " can't eat at the 
table " are commonly comforted by the reflection 
that they can get anything they want later on. 

The majority of children eat lightly at break- 
fast and it is therefore advisable to set before them 
in the morning food containing considerable nour- 
ishment in small bulk. Eggs, cocoa, delicate muf- 
fins, fruit, and some one of the many forms of 
wheat cereals with rich milk offer them oppor- 
tunity to get enough to keep up their strength 
until dinner. 

There is diversity of opinion about the right age 

to begin eating meat. My own experience leads 

me to believe that a little minced rare beef, 

chicken, or fresh fish given to a child over eighteen 

i3° 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

months old at the midday meal is usually bene- 
ficial. It should not be allowed at night, nor in 
larger amounts than a couple of ounces at once, 
until the child is three or four years old; if of ner- 
vous temperament, six. Some preparations of 
beef extract are good when there is great delicacy 
and lack of appetite. Fresh fruit ought to be sup- 
plied — oranges, peaches, apples, and bananas, 
pears and berries if they do not disagree. Some- 
times they do. Of all things, give the little one 
gluten or whole-wheat bread at every meal, and 
do not fill him up with sawdusty crackers. Pud- 
dings simply made, and such vegetables as are in 
season and agree with him, are desirable; but not 
canned vegetables. In everything pleasant flavor- 
ing and dainty serving will greatly enhance his en- 
joyment and consequently aid in his digestion. 
Let baby have his own pretty plate and cup and 
saucer for cocoa or milk; his own tiny spoon and 
fork, and, if possible, a low table and chair where 
he can sit at ease and play " tea-party." 

I must frankly confess that I do not advocate 
a purely vegetarian diet for any one, particularly. 
a child. Vegetables give flesh, sometimes an ap- 
pearance of ruddiness that is deceitful. But to get 
energy one must have meat. Once a day it is in- 
dispensable for the physical welfare of a growing 
'3 1 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

child. We have spoken of the necessity of furnish- 
ing heat through food, of satisfying taste by 
variety and good flavoring, and of the wisdom of 
regularity in serving meals. There remains some- 
thing to be said upon the score of growth. 

" Youth," observes some one, " is the time when 
we drive in our coffin-nails; not only for ourselves, 
but for our offspring." There is ample proof to 
sustain this idea that it matters very much to our 
children what our own physical condition was in 
our youth. It matters whether our grandparents 
were inordinate eaters and consumers of rich 
ports and brandies; whether our fathers smoked 
and our mothers were overdosed with quinine or 
morphine. Alas, what terrible heritages do some 
of us come into! " The fathers have eaten sour 
grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge," 
is a medical proverb. But if we cannot undo the 
evil effects of inheritance, we can instruct our 
children in the laws of self-preservation, so that 
by prudent living they may counteract tendencies 
which would otherwise undermine their constitu- 
tions before they were aware of it. It is the duty 
of a parent to prepare for the physical crises in 
his child's life before they come, and to see that 
his strength is saved up for the time of greatest 
need. 

*3 2 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

Usually the child is most vigorous and the 
strain of growing is at its lowest mark in the fall 
and winter. He can then most readily perform 
mental labor. But with the advance of spring his 
system relaxes, and nature imperatively calls for a 
season of rest in order to prepare for the access of 
growth which will come with the warm weather. 
The growth of the body proceeds by " fits and 
starts." There are periods of almost absolute rest, 
and again there are seasons of remarkable activity 
when the frame expands or shoots upward with a 
rapidity that makes the surprised parent say: 
" You can almost see the child grow." During the 
quiet period nature is storing up energy against 
a sudden call, and at the hour that circumstances 
favor there is a quick demand for all this residue of 
power, and the system is entirely drained for a 
time of its resources. Whether the child passes 
through these growing crises favorably depends 
upon two things : his previous immunity from 
wasting diseases, and his exemption from severe 
mental labor at the time. Every infantile malady 
escaped is so much capital of strength. Instead of 
fancying that little ones should hasten to have 
certain diseases supposed to be incidental to early 
life, parents should believe that the longer any 
sickness can be deferred, the better. The endeavor 
J 33 



THE CHILDRENS HEALTH 

should be to make the child strong enough to 
resist contagious and epidemic disorders. If he 
passes a certain point he is thereafter compara- 
tively safe, for grown persons rarely take " chil- 
dren's diseases,'' and then only when their con- 
stitutions have become weakened so that some 
sort of illness is inevitable for them. Persons 
often remain immune from contagious diseases 
while nursing patients having them simply on ac- 
count of the purity of their own constitutions. A 
man's worst physical foes are inside of his own 
body. If that is sound, " germs " and " microbes " 
have little power over him. Indeed, these invisible 
creatures are not so black as they are often 
painted, and as the old negro preacher said of 
spirits, " they most likely '11 leave us alone if we 
don't think about 'em." 

When a parent's eye detects in the little child 
an unusual languor and readiness to become tired, 
along with an increase of appetite, or a tendency 
to be hungry soon after a meal, as if it had not 
been satisfying, he may feel fairly sure that a 
" growing crisis " is at hand. Suspend the child 
from all intellectual work, increase both his allow- 
ance of sleep and food, and indulge him a little in 
his fits of indolence. They are only temporary. If 
he is in school, either lighten his tasks or take 
i34 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

him out. It is a good thing that the Easter vaca- 
tion gives the children a fortnight's rest just when 
they need it. But the strain of coming examina- 
tions frequently undoes all the benefit. Away with 
these! What are they good for? Far better that 
the child should grow strong while he is young 
and learned when he is older, than that he should 
grow learned in youth and strong — never. We 
cannot put our best energies into more than one 
direction at once, and if we thwart nature when 
she demands our best to use for bodily structure, 
she will surely forsake us at our need, leaving us 
to lament our folly when it is too late. Let the 
child employ his spring vacation with outdoor 
work such as gardening; or simply with play, 
which will give his faculties complete rest. 

Some flinty-hearted educators are attempting 
to prove that long vacations are pernicious and 
that the summer holidays ought to be shortened 
by six weeks. Such an unphysiological idea should 
never be allowed to prevail. Long summer vaca- 
tions are the only salvation of a number of school 
children. They should spend them chiefly in the 
open air. Most children need little urging to go 
out-of-doors in warm weather. But if a boy or 
girl is " bookish " and inclined to lounge in a 
semi-darkened room over a volume, the unwhole- 
*35 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

some inclination should be adroitly combatted. 
Make up a " literary and dramatic club " of young 
folks, and get them to practice out-of-doors, if 
you have any out-of-doors of your own. If not, 
take them to some secluded nook in the park 
where recitation and reading aloud can be carried 
on without drawing down upon one the prohibi- 
tion of the law officers. Other devices may do as 
well. Scarcely any young person will refuse the 
seductions of an impromptu " picnic lunch," or a 
long car-ride in an open trolley, which is fairly 
agreeable in warm weather, and usually takes us 
into the suburbs of cities. 

The best " spring tonic " is an extra hour or so 
each day in the open air. The morning hours are 
especially good, but after four in the afternoon 
the benefit is much lessened. In the early fall, 
persons of well-balanced natures usually feel a 
strong desire for vigorous outdoor exercise, and a 
corresponding increase of appetite. Then benef- 
icent nature supplies our most delicious foods: 
rich vegetables, luscious fruits, and all sorts of 
game, with a variety of nuts to fill in the niches. 
Apples were once called the food of the gods, and 
may claim the title still in precedence over all 
other fruits, excepting perhaps, grapes. If a child 
can get an abundance of fresh grapes during Sep- 
136 



NUTRIMENT AND GROWTH 

tember, he has gotten a good start toward his sup- 
ply of winter energy. 

Where there is no stint of fruit and wholesome 
sweets, and bad habits have not been taught 
them by their elders, children have no great crav- 
ing for candy. This should be reserved as a treat 
for holidays and by no means made an everyday 
indulgence. Home-made " taffy " and the sweet 
chocolate that comes in cakes are very nice, and 
greatly liked by young persons who are not sur- 
feited with confectionery. It is, of course, best 
that all such things be given as part of regular 
meals, not as extras. 

It seems extraordinary that there are intelli- 
gent, well-informed parents who still persist in 
giving tea and coffee to children. However weak, 
tea and coffee are pernicious. If taken weak to- 
day they may be drunk strong to-morrow. When 
a taste for these stimulants is once formed, it is 
rarely broken during the person's life. And they 
are stimulants, not foods. The only nourishment 
they contain is in the milk and sugar commonly 
added to them. Grown people are often com- 
pelled to employ tea and coffee as nerve-stimu- 
lants, sometimes through the force of long habit. 
But the later in life such a habit is contracted, the 
better for the individual. 
i37 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

There are other abuses of the palate young peo- 
ple are prone to, against which the remonstrance 
of every sane person must be directed. Cigarette 
smoking is on the increase instead of on the de- 
cline. What shall wean our girls from the prac- 
tice? We have been vainly trying to check the 
boys, and now their sisters have adopted the fright- 
ful habit as a fashionable folly. All the small 
foibles of infancy grow into gigantic physical sins 
if not checked in time, and perhaps some of this 
present trouble may be traced back to the use of 
chewing-gum among little ones. Besides all the 
other objections that may be marshalled against 
chewing-gum there is one which should be suffi- 
cient: it causes an extraordinary secretion of 
saliva in the mouth, leading to a waste of this use- 
ful fluid, which is essential to the proper mastica- 
tion of all foods, and consequently necessary to 
the process of digestion. 

138 



CHAPTER VI 
THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH. 

<; Grace is that manner of giving expression to attitude and action 
which is the simplest, the easiest, and at the same time the most 
pleasing of which it is capable." — Shaftesbury. 

There is one law of health that few people un- 
derstand and fewer still practice, and the rule is 
simply this: Every effort which is followed by 
more discomfort than gratification is hurtful. 

An effort may be disagreeable at the moment 
but pleasant in reaction, either physically, as when 
an enjoyable glow comes after a cold plunge, or 
mentally, as in the exhilaration that ensues from 
overcoming difficulties; which is one of the most 
agreeable sensations that can be experienced. 
But any exertion that taxes either body or mind 
more than it pays back in satisfaction takes away 
from our general vitality, and is consequently de- 
structive to life. 

This seems to lay under the ban much of our 
necessary work, which involves efforts that no 
i39 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

imagination can cover with rose-colored drapery. 
Yet, if the end makes up in pleasure for the pangs 
of effort, memory swiftly sweeps our trouble into 
the background, and we are the better off for 
work that has the germ of refreshment hidden un- 
der hardship. The old adage is justified, and we 
realize that " Duty performed is a rainbow in the 
soul." 

But since so much of our life must be passed 
in work, while there is comparatively little leisure 
left for meditating upon the fruits of it, life will 
be bitter if work itself is always hard and distaste- 
ful. But it need not be. There is a way of getting 
a certain advantage as we go along, so that even 
if we miss the aim upon which we have set our 
heart we shall have had some satisfaction. Na- 
ture, who is a kind mother after all, as well as a 
rigid economist, has arranged that all our move- 
ments which conduce to any certain end, and are 
an essential part of a complete act, shall not only 
cost us the minimum of discomfort, but shall be 
actually agreeable, as gratifying that sense of har- 
mony and fitness that is innate in us. 

Every one must have had occasion to observe 

in himself at one time or another some peculiarly 

happy performance; an action that was wrought 

with smoothness and ease; that was the result of 

140 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

an unconsciously fine adjustment of means to an 
end, and had a delightful finish and completeness. 
A feat of this kind, be it the writing of a poem, 
the building of a bridge, or a felicitous remark, 
gives us happiness. It becomes a pleasant memory 
and enables us to bear up against the mortifying 
instances in which we are awkward and maladroit. 

An inquiry into the reason of our satisfaction 
with these rare performances shows that simplicity 
and directness had largely to do with their suc- 
cess. " We forgot ourselves," as the phrase is, 
and acted under an inspiration that infallibly 
guided us straight to the desired point without 
friction or waste of energy. And this is the great 
secret of healthful activity: to move smoothly and 
easily to the point, avoiding all useless, spasmodic 
motions. Just as it has been arranged that we 
shall find enjoyment in harmonious, economical 
efforts, it has been ordered that we shall suffer 
from jerky, ill-directed movements that so far 
from being a part of our progress impede it, and 
waste both our muscular and nerve force. 

The reason why smooth, gliding motions please 
us, either in ourselves or when we witness them 
in others, is that they seem to be natural and 
spontaneous. We like the idea of reserved power. 
All appearance of straining or struggling is pain- 
: 4i 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

fuh and our sympathy with an easy, graceful per- 
formance reaches the point of esthetic delight 
when we look at beautiful dancing, excellent row- 
ing, or even observe an example of perfectly ad- 
justed power in a machine. Smooth movements, 
those in harmony with a plan, being always con- 
genial to us. and jerkiness always disagreeable, the 
inference is plain; we can eliminate one element 
of discomfort in everything we do by using simple, 
direct movements. 

Many people think that gracefulness is some- 
thing affected, even insincere. Perhaps they are 
thinking of the " sickly grace " of certain heroines 
of old-fashioned novels, who move through the 
pages with a languor that arouses the just scorn 
of a wide-awake modern reader. But " sickly 
grace " has gone, along with " ethereal delicacy," 
and other cherished symptoms of blue blood in a 
decline, and healthful grace has taken its place. 
There is nothing deceitful about that. Is nature 
a delusion when she uses curved lines instead of 
angles, and everywhere dovetails her different 
groups together with beautiful and intricate de- 
signs like fairy lace-work? It is well known that 
strength and beauty are united in the circle and 
that curving, sinuous lines have a use deeper than 
their appeal to the taste. With some few excep- 
142 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

tions the strongest animals are the most graceful, 
and even those whose bulk gives the appearance 
of awkwardness show, upon occasion, that perfect 
adaptation of means to an end, that unswerving 
directness, which exacts our admiration. For 
awkwardness is merely over-effort. Whenever we 
use more force than the case requires, we are awk- 
ward. However untrained our esthetic sense may 
be, we are pained to observe awkwardness either 
in ourselves or others. We cannot help its being- 
painful, for in his inmost heart every human being 
abhors waste and destruction, even those who are 
given to them; and every one loves good order 
and economical administration. 

When we understand, then, that grace is simply 
economy of force, good management of our vital 
powers, the employment of flowing movements 
which do not break the current of nervous energy, 
instead of abrupt and angular movements which 
do break it, will any one object to the idea that 
gracefulness should be made one of the items of 
the education of our children, since it is a valu- 
able factor in happy, healthful living? 

The commonest every-day duties may be agree- 
ably performed by putting a little science into 
practice. A well-bred woman will make a bed or 
wash dishes with a dexterous turn of the wrist 
i43 



' THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

which to ungainly Bridget looks like a clever con- 
juring trick. Doubtless this dexterity is a natural 
gift, but it may in large measure be acquired. 
Whether grown men and women who have been 
awkward all their lives can learn to be graceful 
later in life, is a very dubious question. Some un- 
gainly young persons maintain their awkwardness 
to the bitter end, despite all processes of culture. 
I knew one girl — the most hopelessly stiff young- 
woman it has ever been my lot to meet — who took 
a course in physical culture in a school where the 
teacher plumed himself upon a system so perfect 
that any one must profit by it. She was a faithful 
and industrious pupil, but her attitudes and ges- 
tures were so irritating to the professor that he ac- 
cused her of not practicing his exercises. 

" I practiced six hours every day last week," she 
said mildly. 

" Then practice twelve this week," tartly an- 
swered her instructor. 

And she did; keeping up this terrible work for 
several weeks, till the end of the term. Neverthe- 
less, she failed to come up to the requisite stand- 
ard and did not pass her examination. Her self- 
culture came too late. If her parents had been 
more careful to train her during her early years, 
much might have been done for her. 
144 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

While the framework of the body is in its grow- 
ing stage the bones are soft, the muscles pliable, 
and the child is able to take positions and perform 
exercises that would be impossible later on. 
Mothers should look to this matter personally, 
and not throw the responsibility for their children's 
physical training upon the school. In the first 
place, most teachers who undertake to give a little 
class drill in grace have but a slight and superficial 
knowledge of what they are expected to impart; 
and finally, not nearly enough time is given it to 
do any good. What headway can an hour's drill 
a week make against seven days of careless, awk- 
ward posturing? The home is the proper school 
of good breeding, and culture in grace must begin 
in infancy if its practice is to become an uncon- 
scious habit throughout life. 

For our model we must take nature, and by 
studying her plans learn the two great secrets of 
perfect grace. In nature's realm there are no 
stiff lines, and nothing that shows signs of hard 
work. All is smooth, rythmical, flowing. Either 
there is absolute stillness, or movements that 
mean something. Permit me to insist upon it 
once more: repose, complete and perfect, or else, 
a movement that symbolizes a thought and car- 
ries out a purpose. 

145 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

Now, our co-operation with nature's intention 
to have her human children graceful even as the 
lower species are, consists chiefly in two things: 
the first is, we are to let our little ones get com- 
mand of their bodies, permitting them entire free- 
dom of movement from the very beginning. They 
are neither to be restrained by tight, heavy 
clothes, nor by ropes and bands, but allow to 
practice arm, leg, and hip movements until they 
are certain of always doing precisely what they 
set out to do, with the least possible effort. 
Second, we must train them — by example more 
than precept — to be utterly still. 

Stillness, when one has nothing to do, is at once 
natural and rare. The conditions of our highly 
civilized, artificial living make us restless. Men 
and women are anxious and uneasy; children copy 
their nervous movements. It is absurd to reprove 
Jane for " lolling " and Edgar for " shuffling " 
when they must make unpleasant signs to indicate 
unpleasant sensations. Instead of directing their 
attention to their attitudes, consequently render- 
ing them the more awkward by the addition of 
self-consciousness, it would be more rational for 
us to change their moods by suggesting some- 
thing agreeable for them to think about. As there 
are two great divisions of the universe, darkness 
146 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

and light, all bright and beautiful things range 
themselves together on one side; all gloomy, hurt- 
ful things on the other. If we would attract to 
ourselves any particular feature of the fair realm, 
we must send out from ourselves some messenger 
related to it; some vibration that it will recognize. 
And contrarily, if we would draw toward us all 
loathsome things we have only to concentrate our 
own thoughts upon something akin to them, and 
they will flock toward us. 

Be angry, and you summon misfortune; grieved, 
and illness hovers above; ashamed, and awkward- 
ness seizes you in its grip. On the other hand, 
love, joy, kindness flowing out from our hearts 
join quickly with pleasure, success and sympathy. 
It is ordained in the book of fate that the miser- 
able man shall be more miserable still; the happy 
one, happier yet. Ah, we can make our own des- 
tiny if we are gifted at birth with the power to see 
clearly and will strongly. What we will, that we 
are. 

Now, if we wish our children to be graceful we 
must make them happy. If we aim to teach them 
the essential lesson of repose we must secure to 
their young souls, peace. Was ever a person at 
peace with his own soul and with the world seen 
to make nervous, automatic movements? No, 
147 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

about such a person there is a great calm, a 
serenity of body that inspires awe in others who 
are victimized by their own anxieties. The little 
child who has nothing to fear — neither scoldings, 
punishments nor criticisms, — who dwells under the 
watchful care of wise, loving parents, so that his 
own soul and his outward environment are in 
harmony, is of necessity a lovely and graceful 
being because there is nothing bitter in his mind 
which his body is compelled to express. 

Among the children one meets daily it is not 
difficult to single out those who are made the sub- 
jects of particular kinds of training at home. The 
furtive look of one, the impudent stare of another, 
the critical, scanning gaze a third gives, the ex- 
cited wildness manifest in a fourth — all have their 
correlatives in the atmospheres of deceit, bully- 
ing, worldliness, and cruelty. Once in a while 
you see a gladsome, gentle little one, uniting the 
fearlessness and shyness of some beauteous, un- 
tamed forest creature; mirthful with its own kith 
and kin, reserved yet at ease with strangers whom 
it looks upon as future friends. Devoid of stiff- 
ness or of affectation, is not the child bewitching 
in its natural, untutored grace? 

This exquisite manner is acquired only under 
the most fortunate circumstances; in a home 
148 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

where the elders are distinguished for their ur- 
banity and good breeding, so that the little one 
insensibly copies his attitudes from the best 
models. But as the parents in such a home will 
have been reared according to the traditions of 
gentle blood, it follows that the child starts with 
a natural aptitude for being graceful. The train- 
ing in physical culture that is bestowed upon him 
shows him how to use the gift he inherited; but 
if he never receives any special training, his su- 
perior sensibilities will give him an immense ad- 
vantage over all those others whose culture is 
more superficial; tingeing actions and manners, 
but not reaching the heart. 

The defect of most systems of grace-culture is 
that they ignore the true principle upon which a 
rational system is founded; namely, development 
of the finer feelings of pupils, an awakening of 
their sympathies and affections. Do we look for 
grace in a stone, or in a cactus? No, but in the 
tender vine, the swaying willow, the dainty field- 
blossom: in whatever is an exponent of some 
lovely quality. Among human beings we find the 
most perfect manifestation of grace among the 
emotional races, and its climax in members cele- 
brated for beauty of character. Cold-hearted peo- 
ple are ungainly, affectionate people graceful. 
149 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

Their nature betrays itself in their walk, the poise 
of their heads, through their very finger-tips. As- 
siduous culture may instruct a heartless man or 
woman in all the outward symbols of graceful car- 
riage; incessant admonition oblige a child of 
coarse nature to hold up his head and drop his 
hands at his side, but as gestures and movements 
are our natural language, practiced long before 
speech was acquired, these persons, so well taught 
as to deliberate expression, will exhibit through 
their more impulsive gestures their innate lack of 
sensibility and refinement. Here is the vital dis- 
tinction between manner and manners: that the 
one is of the blood, the other, only skin deep. 

Out of a poor quality of material we cannot ex- 
pect to produce anything excellent. Our first 
care should be to ascertain the nature of the thing 
we are dealing with, and then set to work to im- 
prove its quality in all respects where it is sus- 
ceptible to improvement, before beginning to em- 
ploy it for the end we have in view. To the heart 
of the child we must direct our efforts toward the 
cultivation of that grace of manner and good car- 
riage of the body which are so pleasing to the eyes 
of observers merely because of the spiritual vir- 
tues they symbolize. When the heart is happy and 
the sentiments pure, rich and wholesome currents 
15° 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

of blood thrill through the entire body, lending 
fairylike lightness to all motions of the limbs. 
The happy child frisks, leaps, and turns about with 
a hundred fluttering gestures far prettier than 
those of the most accomplished ballet dancers; his 
affectionate glances toward his parents, his little 
acts of kindness have about them an enchanting 
grace inimitable by children less fortunately en- 
dowed. And after play he falls without effort into 
that attitude of complete relaxation, so charac- 
teristic that it is often alluded to as the " abandon- 
ment of childhood." 

And this abandonment, this delicious pose of 
rest, is the outcome of a feeling of security in the 
child, a sense of being under a protection at once 
watchful and strong. Not by the flutter of an 
eyelid does he betray, while reclining upon the 
hem of his mother's gown after his pretty romp, 
any indication of uneasiness or disturbance. Free 
to follow out the bent of inclinations toward 
physical activity, he is equally free to yield to the 
instinct for repose, and having no apprehensions, 
no shame, he is perfectly graceful in everything, 
because he does everything in the simplest, easiest 
way. 

If it were possible to retain throughout life 
this simplicity and unconsciousness, all formal in- 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

struction in bodily deportment would be rendered 
unnecessary. But as we mingle with the world, 
we encounter suspicions and criticisms which 
awaken self-consciousness, and arouse a distrust 
of our own conduct, so that something- more is 
needed than a knowledge that we are natural. 
Required, by those challenging glances strangers 
continually cast upon us, to justify our very 
habits of sitting down, lifting our hands or wear- 
ing the hats upon our heads, we seek in our own 
minds for the logic that can explain our innate 
preference to ourselves, and give us confidence in 
the face of an impertinent public. 

Only two classes are intrenched in the sheet 
armor of indifference which protects their self- 
love from the wounds of ridicule: the savage, 
haughtily ignorant, and the wise man, so com- 
pletely cultured that he is certain that all his words 
and acts reflect the harmonies of nature. As the 
time is coming to our children when they will not 
find it sufficient to be right but will need to be 
sure they are right, it is necessary for us to re- 
enforce the habits of physical propriety they pos- 
sess through inheritance and imitation, with a 
knowledge of the true principles of grace. 

If the mother is so fortunate as to be competent 
*5 2 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

to instruct them herself, she may begin very early, 
and, by continuing the course throughout a long 
period, give them a grounding so firm that their 
acquaintance with the system will be like a second 
instinct, guarding them during their lifetime from 
all those little misgivings that lead to mistakes 
even in those whose knowledge should make them 
self-possessed. But as comparatively few women 
not having in view a career upon the stage or 
platform, subject themselves to the long and 
severe training necessary to make them past- 
mistresses of the art of grace, it seems best to in- 
dicate here some of the preliminary lessons of a 
simple home course. Afterwards it may be prop- 
erly supplemented by instruction of the young per- 
son of twelve or fourteen in some good school of 
elocution. 

There is one beautiful compensation for the 
cares of motherhood: everything a mother does 
for her child reacts beneficially upon herself. In 
training her little one she becomes herself en- 
lightened, for when we try to impart something 
to others, we are compelled to free our ideas from 
obscurity in order to present them with clearness 
and force; and in this process our faculties, which 
grow sluggish through disuse, are aroused to 
vigor and health. 

i53 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

Although it is desirable for a teacher to have 
a thorough mastery of her subject, mothers 
should not be deterred from supervising any part 
of their children's education by misgivings as to 
their fitness. A child has naturally a blind confi- 
dence in its mother's universal knowledge; a deli- 
cate flattery which she has sometimes the vanity 
to encourage more than is fair. Herbart ob- 
serves that as the whole realm of knowledge is 
too vast for any one person to possess, and there 
is often some one at hand who is able to impart 
to a child that which we do not know ourselves, 
we should frankly make use of such a person. If. 
however, a mother has a desire to teach her child 
herself, study and practice will enable her to keep 
her place as adviser and helper even in matters of 
which her understanding is slight. This is par- 
ticularly true in physical education, as everything 
bearing upon the child's health and manner is 
peculiarly the mother's affair. I think that every 
intelligent mother will be able to apply the fol- 
lowing few simple suggestions to the training of 
her child. 

We have agreed that stiffness, or that immo- 
bility which prevents free, direct movements for a 
purpose, is a foe to grace and health. Healthy 
little children, properly reared, are never stiff; but 
J 54 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

as most children are from time to time victimized 
by some juvenile malady which keeps them in bed 
for awhile, breaking up their habit of regular exer- 
cise, it comes to pass that even the most favored 
occasionally become weak and lose complete con- 
trol over their muscles. Mild calisthenics are 
necessary to restore suppleness to their limbs and 
bring their blood into circulation. 

Now, there are two ways of taking stiffness 
from the body: one is relaxing or devitalizing, the 
other is exercising. The one leads to repose, the 
other to action, and while the first acts upon the 
nerves directly, the second acts upon the muscles, 
but has also incidentally an effect upon the nerves. 
It is easy for a body which has gained self-con- 
trol by exercise to relax gracefully, for in repose 
there should be a suggestion of latent strength. 
Limpness is not grace. The most talented and ex- 
perienced teachers use " decomposing " exercises 
side by side with exercises which strengthen the 
muscles and nerves. The prime necessity is to de- 
velop a firm, elastic carriage, and the first point to 
acquire is poise. 

Few persons beyond the period of infancy sit, 
stand, or walk naturally. In standing they usu- 
ally rest nearly their whole weight upon their 
heels, while it should fall upon the ball or middle 
i55 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

part of the foot. The abdomen should be drawn 
in and the chest thrown out. This will of itself 
throw the head in the right position, and we 
should, therefore, not pay much attention to that, 
but take care to keep our shoulders down; not ele- 
vating them every time we take breath, as is often 
done. Standing in what is called the " military 
position " — which is only admissible for practice — 
the heels nearly together and the toes turned out 
at an angle of sixty degrees, we will go through 
the first exercise. 

I. Throw the weight of the body on the left 
foot; then raise the right foot, stretch it out in 
front of the body without bending the knee, and 
hold it so while you count ten. Replace it upon 
the floor. Keep the body straight and easy, mak- 
ing the leg muscles do all the work. Repeat the 
exercise with the left foot, while standing with the 
weight on the right. 

The mother should practice this and the other 
exercises that follow, before a long mirror, mak- 
ing sure that she is perfect in them before she es- 
says to teach her children. With little ones under 
ten years we must proceed very slowly. For the 
first week give them only this one exercise, with 
a daily practice of ten minutes, selecting a time 
not too soon after a meal, and when they are feel- 
156 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

ing fresh and wideawake. The second week, add 
this to the foregoing; merely going through the 
old one once to make sure it is well learned, then 
proceeding to give the rest of the time to the new 
one. 

II. With weight resting on the left foot, swing 
the right foot backward and forward ten times. 
Then swing the left while resting weight on the 
right. Hold the entire body straight and firm as 
a young sapling. The hands should fall easily at 
the sides, the eyes look straight ahead. 

The third week merely review both these and 
add this: 

III. Standing with all the weight on the left 
foot, swing the right around the body from front 
to back and return, without altering the pose of 
the body, ten times. Then swing the left foot, 
keeping weight on the right. 

The fourth week: 

IV. Rise smoothly to the toes of both feet, 
then descend to the original position, ten times. 

The fifth week: 

V. Rise to the toes of the left foot while keep- 
ing right foot lifted slightly above the floor, ten 
times. Repeat exercise with the right foot, while 
raising left one. This is difficult and must be pa- 
tiently practiced. 

iS7 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

VI. While standing with the weight on the balls 
of both feet, dip the body straight down, as far as 
it will go, without bending either forward or back- 
ward. Rise and dip again, ten times. Be careful 
to execute the movements with perfect smooth- 
ness. In all exercises for poise the movements 
must be smooth, regular, and slow. Jerkiness is 
inadmissible. Perfect poise can only be attained 
by systematic, patient effort. 

In order to take out any element of tedium, 
practice all the exercises to the accompaniment 
of music. Have some one play a slow marching 
air, keeping accurate time, and the children will 
enjoy their little practice much more than they 
could without the cheerful melody. 

Six weeks methodical work, even using only ten 
or fifteen minutes each day, should give the child 
a good knowledge of poise, that most important 
item of physical culture, and he will then be ready 
to pass on to the consideration of attitude. 

Just as every motion has a purpose, so every 
attitude has a meaning. Actors, painters, and 
sculptors know this so well that they are careful 
to have the smallest item of their work in har- 
mony with the over-ruling motive. If you would 
be convinced of the importance of minute details 
iS8 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

in the matter of expression, study the pose of 
figures in the finest paintings and statuary. If a 
finger on the hand of a single personage is turned 
the wrong way, the whole effect is marred. We 
are not often able to analyze the difficulties we 
feel, or explain why certain mistaken poses are dis- 
pleasing to us, but the majority of persons recog- 
nize perfection when it is before them, and ex- 
perience a feeling of peculiar pleasure from the 
contemplation of either living persons or inani- 
mate objects so posed as accurately to express a 
latent meaning. 

There is sometimes excuse for awkward actions. 
A person may be new to his work, or fearful and 
confused. We pardon those faults which arise 
from too much zeal, and do not scold the child 
who hastens to perform some obliging act for us, 
however ungraceful he may be. But the instant 
any person or thing passes from action into a 
state of rest, our criticism becomes more impar- 
tial. We exact from a thing at rest conformity 
to a certain standard, and grotesqueness always 
excites our disapproval. 

It happens, consequently, that most of our criti- 
cisms of our children's ways of managing their 
bodies refer to their attitudes; the postures they 
fall into when they are still. They are frequently 
i59 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

made the subjects of admonitions that abash with- 
out enlightening them, for mothers usually think 
that a child is incapable of comprehending a gen- 
eral principle, and do not take the trouble to ex- 
plain why a fault is offensive. 

Children should not be harassed by having con- 
siderations relating to nature's laws thrust upon 
them. We must constantly invite their attention 
to what is harmonious and artistic, and let them 
draw the inference themselves. Childhood has 
such native grace that little ones ordinarily con- 
form instinctively to the nice canons of art, when 
they are free and unembarrassed. Their contor- 
tions sometimes are meant to show a dissatisfac- 
tion with conditions or dislike of their company 
which they do not care to utter in words. Let us 
refrain from taking notice of every small infraction 
of decorum in attitude. If a child stands or sits 
in a way to jar upon our nerves, reproof is more 
apt to irritate than to instruct him, for beyond 
question he is not at that moment in a mood to 
profit by criticism. 

Now, all the pretty little symbolic plays that 
have crept into the schools and nurseries lately, 
come to our rescue and suggest a way of indirectly 
teaching children the importance of being careful 
about the attitudes they take. The " farmer and 
1 60 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

seed game," " homing bird game," and others 
which make it necessary for feet, head, and fingers 
to indicate certain thoughts, reveal to them that 
all motions express ideas. Next, we may lead 
them on to tableaux, and have them choose an 
idea which they shall try to manifest to us through 
their attitudes. It is more profitable for them to 
develop bodily expression through their own feel- 
ing than to copy their poses from pictures. There 
is always danger of arousing self-consciousness 
and producing affectation if we do not keep well 
before our own eyes the true aim of grace-culture, 
which is, the natural, truthful rendering of beauti- 
ful ideas and feelings. Therefore, avoid telling the 
child that you are cultivating his capacity for 
grace, and dwell only upon the fact that as the 
body is the servant of the mind it is expected of 
every one to make his body obey his mind in every 
point, and a duty and pleasure for us all to get 
complete control of this vehicle of our thoughts. 

Ease and naturalness in depicting feelings are 
often acquired by the use of such nursery comedies 
as " Bo Peep," " Cinderella," and " Queen of 
Hearts," and so on. Where there is a large family, 
the idea of charades, tableaux, and plays will be 
seized upon with avidity by its younger members, 
and they will gain a great deal of experience 
161 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

through such miniature acting. Fearsome dramas, 
such as " Red Riding Hood " and " Jack the Giant 
Killer " should be ruled out. We do not want our 
children to learn to act out fear and grief, but 
rather to depict characters that are beautiful and 
joyous. All nursery acting should be of the 
simplest, least sensational kind, and modelled 
upon nature, not upon the art of the stage. It is 
not well to take young children to the theatre, 
for the contemplation of animated action while 
they themselves are constrained to be passive is an 
unwholesome experience for little ones. After 
they are ten or twelve years they should occasion- 
ally see good plays, for the stage is an educative 
force that cannot be ignored. 

So many things have potency as educators that 
it seems as if a mother can keep reasonably busy 
merely with exclusion. Were it possible to keep 
from our children's sight everything grotesque and 
hideous, I believe their morals and manners would 
need little supervision. We do not think enough 
upon this subject. For instance, we continually 
give our little ones pictures cut from fashion 
magazines, containing figures wretchedly dis- 
torted and faulty from every point of view. If 
they are to have these things, we should at least 
nullify their influence by pointing out the fact that 
162 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

they are mere lay figures for costumes, and not 
models for the carnage of our own body. Defend 
our little ones from the affectations of fashion! 

On account of the bias they give toward vanity 
and emulation, dancing schools cannot be unre- 
servedly recommended. Private classes, composed 
of a few pupils, are much to be preferred. Un- 
questionably, all children should be taught to 
dance. Not the " latest steps," nor the immodest 
fancy dances which deal in the high kicking of 
the opera bouffe; but the pretty and sensible 
standard dances which contain the first principles 
of rhythmical movements of the body and cultivate 
the child's feeling of harmony, as well as train 
him to precision and sureness of poise. Mothers 
should be very cautious in their selection of the 
dancing teacher and ascertain something of the 
character of the other pupils before enrolling their 
children as members of a class. And even when 
all appears satisfactory, a careful mother will either 
be present herself at lessons or send a trusty at- 
tendant with her child. Latin may be debated 
between teacher and pupil confidentially, but 
dancing requires a chaperone. Nor does this sug- 
gestion apply only to girls. The Greeks did not 
cast their youths headlong into the world to take 
care of themselves; and there is no reason why 
163 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

prudent parents should not maintain a certain 
watchfulness over boys, not enough to curtail their 
reasonable independence, but enough to insure 
their safety in the midst of the numerous pitfalls 
of social intercourse. 

A person who dances well usually knows how to 
walk; but if one reverses the rule, it seems as if 
there must be few really good dancers, for our 
country abounds in bad walkers. The advantage, 
in comparing men and women, is in favor of the 
men. They may not be especially graceful in their 
carriage, but they conform to one rule: economy 
of force. Their object being to get to their des- 
tination, they move forward with directness and 
precision, and any lack of ease is lost in a show of 
energy. A man must be very well bred who dares 
to lounge in public. Boys shuffle along and make 
rather unpleasant spectacles of themselves before 
military drill or the gymnasium teaches them to 
control their limbs. Yet, the males of all lower 
species are more graceful than the females, and it 
is somewhat curious that this superiority has been 
forfeited by mankind in all movements except 
those of walking. 

With the help of those abominable contrivances, 
roller-skates, our girls will manage before long to 
lose any advantage they now have. I sometimes 
164 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

question whether mothers are blind or mad who 
give their little girls roller-skates and send them 
out to practice ankle-breaking and body-distorting 
on the city sidewalks. Steel skates and an ice- 
pond are delightful; human beings are not out of 
their element when they glide over smooth ice 
with the motion of birds. But I cannot believe 
that we were ever designed to go on wheels. 

There is much to be urged also, against the 
abuse of bicycles. Observe the boys traveling on 
their machines, their bodies bent over double, 
their mouths half open, their eyeballs glaring. 
They are in such mad haste that they resemble 
some amorphous creatures fleeing from the con- 
straining grasp of nature. Our girls usually hold 
themselves better, and even when riding swiftly 
recollect something of the proprieties in attitude. 
The modern tendency of making almost no dis- 
crimination between the physical exercises of boys 
and girls, is not, however, exempt from danger. 
There are certain unconquerable natural differ- 
ences between the physical aptitudes of the two 
sexes; and by disregarding them we shall simply 
produce mongrels, having the distinct characteris- 
tics of neither men nor women. 
i. The same exercises and pursuits may engage 
boys and girls if their guardians take care that 
'65 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

each sex develops according to their nature: that 
is, the boys remain boys; the girls, girls. At a re- 
cent mothers' meeting an indefatigable suffragist 
suggested that all little girls should wear trousers 
and boys be taught embroidering; because she be- 
lieved in " equality." Perhaps at a more advanced 
epoch some philanthropist will invent a cage in 
which young males may be reared; to prevent 
their gaining, through the exercise of their natural 
functions, an undue advantage over their sisters. 

I, however, have such confidence in woman's 
wit and man's docility under judicious treatment, 
that I advocate the accentuation rather than the 
suppression of characteristic differences, through 
education. 

The virtues are sexless, and mothers should be 
as careful to encourage modesty in their boys as in 
their girls; also self-reliance, candor, and presence 
of mind. But they need not look for similar 
manifestations of these traits in both. The finer 
the organism of a feminine creature, the more es- 
sentially feminine she is in her mode of living up 
to the highest, boldest ideal it is within the power 
of the human mind to conceive. And the same is 
to be said of man: the more thoroughly developed 
he is, the more truly manlike does he become. 
Let us acknowledge the supremacy of nature. 
166 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

The reason I lay stress upon the culture of men- 
tal graces is that they are the spring and source 
of bodily movements. As we think, we act; as 
we sit, stand, and walk, we are. Faults of car- 
riage of the body reflect faults of the mind and 
soul. The woman who moves along the pavement 
in a way to provoke remark must really be a 
flaunting, self-conscious person, unhappy unless 
people are observing her. Haughtiness, even if 
momentary, gives a noticeable peculiarity to the 
gait. Never shall I forget a certain childish ex- 
perience of this. Being obliged to don a plain and 
much-despised dress one evening, my effort to rise 
superior to my appearance was betrayed by a de- 
cided loftiness of expression. Marching beside my 
father, I passed a couple of little girls playing in 
the gutter, both of whom suspended their play to 
gaze at me. In a moment shrilled out the clear- 
cut criticism: " Oh, she's proud, she's proud! An' 
she ain't got nothin' on to be proud of, neither! " 

Children see so much mincing and striding on 
the part of their elders that it is well to counteract 
these influences by home drill in modest, graceful 
walking. Whatever is smooth, unconscious, and 
natural to us in our best state of mental and physi- 
cal health, should be assiduously practiced until it 
becomes a habit. 

167 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

Whenever we are in a cheerful, agreeable mood, 
the head and chest instinctively elevate them- 
selves; the feet touch the floor with an elastic pres- 
sure, and the hands relax, the thumbs inclining 
outward. Now, this is, of all others, the carriage 
of the body to be cultivated. The following exer- 
cise may be practiced ten minutes a day with great 
advantage: 

First, fix the mind on cheerful, courageous 
thoughts. This will be aided by listening to 
lively music, played upon the piano by some one 
who is willing to help along the child's physical 
culture. Now, rise and walk at a moderate pace 
up and down the floor. Let the heels touch the 
floor first at each step, but very lightly, the weight 
instantly transferring itself to the balls of the feet, 
which should slightly cling to the floor as the body 
moves onward. Avoid all hip movements, or de- 
cided swinging of the arms. Carry the arms by 
the sides and let the hands move as they incline 
to, with an almost imperceptible motion in the op- 
posite direction from the feet. 

Very few persons walk in this rhythmical way. 
It is difficult unless one has been trained early in 
life. Mothers should train their children with 
great care, but as if in play; not permitting them to 
dwell upon the idea of becoming graceful. For 
168 



THE RELATION OF GRACE TO HEALTH 

the vice of self-consciousness is easily implanted 
in young hearts, and hard to subdue. 

Fault-finding must be altogether avoided, for 
nothing produces awkwardness so surely. When- 
ever a person becomes sensitive upon some point, 
he spends his energy in fretting over it and has 
none left with which to amend. Mistaken, well- 
meaning parents, desirous of having their children 
an improvement upon themselves, often inveigh 
too bitterly against faults they particularly dislike 
to see in their children because they reflect their 
own weak points. Young persons grow bashful 
or impertinent under smarting reproofs; the 
memory of them shadows their character, and they 
become victimized by a " besetting sin " as a prom- 
inent defect used to be called. I have known of 
a childhood made miserable by the harping of the 
family upon such a weakness. And of another 
where a serious, intense nature was criticised as 
" odd " and " blunt " till the child shrank into her- 
self and gazed out upon the world as if from the 
prison-house of her own blighted personality, sor- 
rowing with hopeless yearning for the prettiness, 
the attraction and grace so carelessly worn by her 
happier acquaintances. 

In nothing do mothers commit so many fatal 
errors as in tutoring their children concerning 
169 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

"manners." They are fierce because their pride 
is touched. The point they insist upon is that 
their children must present a good appearance so 
that strangers shall think well of the family. We 
should do better to direct our efforts toward mak- 
ing our children strong, agile, supple, and well 
poised. Then their manner would always have 
the charm of a happy, self-possessed bearing. And 
self-possession is the root of grace. 
170 



CHAPTER VII 
VOCAL EXPRESSION. 

" Commes branches d'education physique, la lecture a haute voix, 
la declamation et le chant affrent des ressources precieuses pour cul- 
tiver les facultes vocale et auditere, aussi bien que pour fortifier les 
poumons et la poitrine. La culture de ces organes contribue plus 
qu'on ne le croit generalement a une bonne constitution physique." — ■ 
M. C. Marcel. 

It is a significant fact that although America 
produces few singers, it produces many consump- 
tives; while Germany abounds in singers and sel- 
dom, comparatively with ourselves, has a case of 
phthisis. The wonderful toughness of the Italian 
boys who wander about our streets, soaked with 
rain and chilled by the icy blasts of our hard win- 
ters, is largely owing to the constant use of their 
vocal organs, which develops such prodigious 
strength of chest. The silent people creep into 
the grave with swift, sure footsteps; noisy people 
live long, to be nuisances to the world. It is hard 
for us — calm as we are under the atrocious dis- 
171 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

sonances of machinery — to tolerate the ordinary 
noises of human beings. Roars, shouts, calls of 
street venders exasperate us; the cries and ex- 
clamations of children annoy us to a degree we 
scarcely like to confess, in view of the well-known 
fact that it is necessary for all children to use their 
lungs freely if they are to have any health. 

The first sign of life made by a human being on 
entering the world is a cry. It is a welcome sound 
then, and for once in the course of its existence 
nobody undertakes to suppress this vocal disturb- 
ance, and baby makes as much noise as he likes. 
But never again is he permitted this indulgence. 
The second day a course of " hushing " begins, 
and everybody joins in the effort to impress upon 
him that no matter from what cause his crying 
proceeds, whether from hunger, pain, fright or the 
natural desire to exercise his lungs, the noise is 
to be stopped, and he is to bring himself into a 
state of quietude. 

We know a great many things which we have 
no mind to practice. Scarcely any one is ignorant 
of the fact that almost the only exercise a young 
baby gets is in crying: that it does not always 
come, from discomfort, but is often merely me- 
chanical, and when thus devoid of suggestions of 
pain the muscular effort is wholesome, and neces- 
172 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

sary for the proper expansion of his chest. Will 
the time not come when a mother will blush at 
failing to comprehend her child as well as a mother 
animal understands its young? The very cats and 
hens know the meaning of the different notes of 
their offspring; yet only an exceptional mother, 
gifted with rare insight, is able to tell one kind of 
crying from another, and to distinguish the plaint 
of hunger from the sharp scream of pain, the yell 
of anger from the loud, vacant roar of animation. 
Some patient study is necessary before we are able 
to separate this peculiar noise from many which 
resemble it. But the welfare of childhood de- 
mands that we learn to know when a baby's cry 
should be attended to and quieted, and when he 
should be allowed to roar in peace to strengthen 
his lungs. Suppressing him makes him ill-tem- 
pered. We should take his noise as a matter of 
course, and not complain because he does not 
know yet how to make his racket melodious. It 
is our business to instruct him in this art, and we 
may begin when he is about six months old to re- 
fine his primitive instincts. 

I think most people in the world, savages and 

children included, do necessary things as well as 

they know how, and they improve when shown 

better ways. Since to make vocal noises is a pre- 

173 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

rogative of childhood, all that we have a right to 
do is to improve the quality of the noise, chang- 
ing it from discord into harmony. Now, the first 
characteristic of harmony is good humor. That 
introduces into all sorts of vocal expression a cer- 
tain cadence. Wrath and fright are wild, clashing, 
confused; good humor measured and self-pos- 
sessed. The mother will, therefore, try to impress 
her infant with the duty of making his small roars 
good-humored by way of rendering them agree- 
able to the company. Let her place the little one 
in a comfortable chair and sit in front of him so 
he can see her face, which should wear a bright, 
merry expression; then she must open her mouth 
widely and make a prolonged, low, soft note, like 
muffled thunder. Baby will almost certainly listen, 
and perhaps try to imitate the note. It is pleasant 
play for him, but should not last more than a few 
minutes on any one day. for every effort that is 
the beginning of a new habit involves more or less 
mental strain, and we do not wish to weary a child 
with what we aim to attract him toward. 

So, this first lesson in vocal culture must be 
given with great tact and caution. Our chief de- 
sign is to teach the little one that he is at liberty 
to use his voice; that being quiet is not an essen- 
tial part of virtue; and to this end we must take 
i74 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

care never to check roughly and suddenly any 
cries he may make. A smiling, cheery little " sh," 
as we call that indescribable clucking sound 
mothers make, will be sufficient if mother and 
child are on confidential terms, to indicate to him 
the desirability of softening his notes. And the 
baby who learns to soften his cries, making them 
cheerful instead of shrill, has taken a great step 
in the art of vocal culture. At two years he will 
have unconsciously acquired the habit of making 
his tones loud and forcible when he wants to, with 
out raising the pitch. And the advantage of this 
is almost inestimable. A high pitch indicates ex- 
citement and reacts unfavorably upon the nerves. 
It is also disagreeable to listeners, and conse- 
quently children who become easily excited are 
always being reproved for using a high pitch of 
voice. But the reproof is seldom attended with 
very good results, for they are usually told " not 
to talk so loud." Which is stupid. The child tries 
to conform to the regulation by lessening the 
volume of tone, but continues using the same 
pitch. He has been corrected but not instructed, 
and not having the least idea of how he is to 
change the mode of speaking which offends our 
ears, will probably offend again the next instant. 
What we should have done is to tell him not to 
i75 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

speak so high, and show him, by example, how 
to lower his pitch. 

My little daughter, at four years, had a clear, 
strong voice, but like most children who are full 
of life and energy, too often used the shrill, high 
pitch. One morning while dressing her I told her 
about the three different registers in the voice, 
illustrating them effectively with examples and 
stories. Within ten minutes she mastered the 
idea of the head-voice, the throat-voice, and the 
chest-voice; comprehending that the first is to be 
avoided, while the second is sweet and pleasant for 
ordinary use. She has not forgotten, and now has 
the range of her voice fairly well under her own 
control; even showing a power of criticising others 
and exacting of them compliance with the good 
rule. 

It is desirable, from the very first, to cultivate 
the voice downward, so that the lower notes may 
grow strong. The more forcible they are, the bet- 
ter lung-power we possess, and one of the best 
possible exercises for the chest is shouting in the 
middle pitch, in the open air, and repeating the 
shout afterwards, in a slightly lower pitch, trying 
to make it as strong as before. Haste, in vocal 
culture, is worse than waste. To force the voice 
in any way is to ruin it. The child should not be 
176 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

required to lower his voice suddenly, but gradu- 
ally, and in practicing he must always use the low- 
est pitch that is convenient to him. In every voice 
there is what is called the " convenient low note," 
and the use of it finally strengthens the note just 
below it. So, if our little pupil has a voice run- 
ning away up into the high register, we must not 
insist upon too great a drop in pitch, but let him 
employ the lowest note that he conveniently can. 
There is a certain form for teaching the different 
degrees of pitch for which I am indebted to the 
principal of the school of oratory I attended, and 
have found valuable in my family. In the hope 
that mothers will use it, I copy it below: 

Modulation in Pitch. 
9. Extremely High: 

" I repeat it, sir; let it come, let it come ! " 

8. Very High: 

" Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty ! " 

7. High: 

"The sounding aisles of the dim woods rang." 

6. Rather High: 

" With music I come from my balmy home." 

5. Medium: 

" A vision of beauty appeared on the clouds." 
177 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 
4. Rather Low: 

"Friends, Romans, countrymen." 

3. Low: 

" And this is in the night, most glorious night." 

2. Very Low: 

" Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll." 

I. Extremely Low: 

" Eternity, thou pleasing, dreadful thought." 

Pitch number five is the middle or normal pitch 
of the voice, and in reciting these quotations it is 
well to begin with it, and run upwards; then re- 
peat it again and move downwards. With young 
children omit number one, which is scarcely possi- 
ble for them until they have gained facility in slid- 
ing their voice from high to low. I consider the 
daily practice of this exercise one of the most 
valuable lessons that can be imparted to a child 
by his parents at home. Besides the vocal exer- 
cise and consequent strengthening of the chest, it 
is a training in delicacy of perception, in judg- 
ment, and in readiness of apprehension. The 
teacher should be patient and tactful, for, as a 
small pupil of mine observed, " it is hard to match 
pitches " — meaning, to suit the pitch to the num- 
ber. Another little exercise, called the " stair- 
step exercise," pleases children, and helps them 
178 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

with the chart. As the notes are made to corre- 
spond with piano notes, it is well for the teacher 
to strike them upon the piano during the first 
few lessons. I take this exercise from Ross' 
" Voice Culture and Elocution," an excellent 
manual for home use which mothers will do well 
to read: 

G tion? G 
F ac- 
E in- F 
D and 
C tion E 
B lu- 
A o- D 

G res- 
F ir- C 

E by 
D strength B 
C er 
B gath- A 
A we 
G Shall G 

Pronounce the whole sentence, syllable by sylla- 
ble, with a gradually ascending pitch, from the 
lowest note within the compass of the voice, to 
the highest. Make the slide smoothly, beginning 
slowly, and from day to day increasing the speed, 
until you can run up quickly. 
179 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

When the child has gained some knowledge of 
modulation in pitch, he can comprehend a request 
to lower his voice. If my little ones rushed into 
shrieks, I had only to say laughingly " Use No. 5 
pitch, my dears! " to effect an instant and pleasant 
change in their utterance. In reading stories and 
poems to them, I am careful to modulate my voice 
with due regard to the tenor of the recital, using 
the lower pitches for everything serious and the 
higher ones for livelier moods. A mother will find 
it quite worth her while to cultivate the art of 
sliding up and down in pitch when talking as well 
as reading, for the sake of the additional power 
it gives her to command her children's attention. 
Every accomplishment a mother possesses in- 
creases her influence over her children, and every 
lesson received from her that develops their own 
faculties wins their gratitude and respect. 

But although all cultured mothers receive defer- 
ence, it is probable that those whose companion- 
ship is most enjoyed are women who have musical 
and histrionic talents. Even talkative women are 
preferred by young children to cold, silent per- 
sons. They crave that which is expansive, full of 
life and animation. But after awhile, when their 
intelligence is more fully awakened, they find the 
play of another person's wit less agreeable; they 
180 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

yearn for self-expression. Now, if the mother has 
been selfish and indifferent, and has neglected to 
develop their powers, they turn away from her 
with a sense of satiety in her liveliness. Day by 
day, year by year, let a mother give to the grow- 
ing mind of her child nutriment that shall 
strengthen his entire nature, not considering any 
pains too great which secures this symmetrical 
development of body and soul. That which she 
should teach him she should herself learn, if she 
does not know it already. At least she should 
be able to give him a foundation, upon which 
other teachers may build. Some sorts of knowl- 
edge are never fully acquired unless they are 
learned at home. And among them I reckon the 
art of using the voice properly. It is almost indis- 
pensable that either the father or mother should 
understand the principles of deep breathing and 
voice building, even though they may not possess 
the arts in perfection. The one is preliminary to 
the other, for voice depends upon breath. It is 
breath made into tone, and one of the earlier les- 
sons for children is how to convert the breath 
fully into tone when speaking, so that none is 
wasted, producing that peculiar intonation com- 
mon to untrained children, resembling a partial 
whisper. This " aspiration," or mingling of waste 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

air with tone, is almost universal, and not easy to 
overcome unless checked before the habit is con- 
firmed. It is cured by the use of the " open 
throat " and the " pure " tone, two items upon 
which I must dwell briefly; for although it is not 
my intention to do more here than point out the 
need of vocal culture in a child's education, it may 
be helpful to mothers to have it suggested that 
the three fundamental lessons are those of modu- 
lation, already alluded to, and the two I am about 
to explain. 

The throat is in the right position for making 
a good tone when the soft palate is raised, and 
the larynx, or " Adam's apple," is lowered, as it 
is when we gape. The child is to learn to be able 
to put his throat in this position without actually 
gaping, until, by practice, he is able to keep his 
throat open most of the time, carrying what we 
call the " artistic open throat." At first we must 
have him really gape, showing him, in a mirror, 
how the " Adam's apple " raises itself as he swal- 
lows, and lowers when he gapes. After this, in- 
duce him simply to " think the gape "; that is, to 
imagine himself gaping, and while doing so, make 
a prolonged, soft tone in " ah," holding it as long 
as he can, comfortably. This will not be very long, 
unless he knows well how to manage his breath. 
182 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

But if wisely taught and intelligently practiced, 
this exercise of opening the throat and making 
the tone " ah," will produce excellent results. 
The middle pitch is to be preferred, although any 
convenient one may be taken. All the little calis- 
thenic exercises for the head and neck, including 
bending the head forward and back, sidewise and 
downward, help to strengthen the throat and in- 
crease the flexibility of its muscles. Care must be 
taken to avoid straining or practicing where a 
draught of air is present, for at the instant of re- 
laxation naturally following all muscular exertion 
there is danger of taking cold. 

The third great lesson in our simple course is 
the use of the " pure tone." By " pure " is not 
meant " perfect." The " perfect " tone is one 
which is absolutely free from all defects, and it can 
only be made by persons who either have natur- 
ally beautiful voices, or who have been thoroughly 
trained. A " pure " tone relates both to the 
quality of the tone, and the feeling that lies back 
of it. To develop this in the child we must habitu- 
ally speak to him with the accent of kindness, so 
that as he imitates our manner of speech his little 
voice will unconsciously take on a sweet, winning 
character. High-bred little children use this tone 
most of the time, especially when speaking to their 
183 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

pets and dolls. Only the children of refined, 
happy surroundings possess it naturally. The 
voice of the street waif, however strong, is gut- 
tural and aspirate, not more from exposure to 
weathers than starvation of soul. But as it is one 
of the rarest possessions, so, too, is it one of the 
most precious, being not only beautiful in itself, 
but reacting wonderfully upon the physical wel- 
fare of the person who employs it. The pure tone 
is embodied joy, serenity, confidence, affection, in 
its bright form; tenderness and sympathy in its 
darker form. Beautiful thoughts and fancies help 
to create it, and its culture consists largely in put- 
ting ourselves in the attitude of admiration and es- 
teem. Read to the child every day a bit of pretty 
verse or prose, and get him to relate to you some 
pleasant experiences of his own. When the lovely 
accent we are endeavoring to draw out from him 
makes its appearance, remark upon it, saying how 
pleasant it is and how much you like to hear him 
speak in that manner. For a more definite and 
particular culture of the pure tone I recommend 
two little exercises: the first one consists in carry- 
ing a tone in " ah," upwards, thinning it as it rises 
in pitch. As the ordinary tendency of untrained 
speakers is to make their lower tones weak and 
their higher ones forcible, it is difficult to reverse 
184 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

the process. But all the more is this exercise 
valuable for the self-control it requires. I know 
of no other which is so effective in sweetening a 
voice, and it is a great aid in restoring the purity 
of tone which has been lost during sickness. 

First, inhale deeply, then open the throat and 
pronounce " ah " in the lowest note of the voice 
compass, making it as strong as possible. Hold 
the note and slide upward in the scale, till the 
highest possible note is reached and the breath is 
all used, continually making the tone thinner 
(fainter) as it rises. Then begin again, low and 
strong, and end faint and high. The tone may be 
illustrated by describing it as a wedge, large at the 
base and pointed at the apex, thus: 



- - - Thio and High 




A sort of singing tone may be used, but great 
care should be taken to keep the note smooth and 
continuous, without break, or any catching of the 
185 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

breath. The power of making a thin, high tone 
belongs only to trained vocalists, and the exercise 
is regarded as especially valuable by the most ac- 
complished singers. When one gains the faculty 
of imparting a sort of silvery sweetness to the 
higher notes of the voice, the pure tone is ac- 
quired. 

As it is intimately related to the emotional side 
of our nature, the memorizing of good poetry is a 
factor in its acquisition. The second exercise sug- 
gested for the child is repeating several times each 
day the following sentence: 

" One by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, 
blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of 
the angels." 

When carefully done, with a constantly increas- 
ing effort to realize in one's mind the picture these 
words present, the effect is very beneficial. See 
that the " s's " abounding in this sentence are all 
pronounced clearly and without the suggestion of 
the whisper which marks aspiration. Imitating 
the ringing of a bell is also very good practice. 
This will be understood after reading over Poe's 
poem of " The Bells," where the brazen, iron, 
golden, and silver bells are described. They are 
each supposed to have their characteristic sound, 
the iron bell corresponding to the lowest, deepest 
186 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

note of the voice, the brazen echoing heavily and 
harshly in a higher pitch, the golden running up 
slightly, clear and melodious, while the silver bell 
peals out thin and sweet, in our highest note. 
Have the child repeat the word " bell " several 
times, prolonging the sound of the " 1." You will 
be tired of hearing him before he is tired of the 
exercise, for it is one which seems to give the chil- 
dren peculiar satisfaction. 

It may be observed that I have said more, so 
far, about clearing and sweetening children's 
voices than about strengthening them. But in 
truth, the little exercises I have described are 
more effective in teaching breath-control and giv- 
ing expansion to the chest than many of the more 
pretentious gymnastics which are vaunted as pro- 
ducing lung-power. The first thing necessary in 
vocal culture is to eradicate the defects every one 
has to a greater or less extent. Throatiness, 
which is a defect caused by too close an aperture 
or too much rigidity in the throat; orality, or 
whining; nasality, which is tone in the nostrils; 
and aspiration, or a mixture of waste air with tone, 
are all faults especially noticeable in children, and 
capable of being cured early in life. We should 
earnestly endeavor to free their voices from these 
defects before we direct our efforts toward 
187 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

strengthening their vocality, or the faults will 
grow as voice grows. 

When the child has gained some control over 
his voice and begins to speak in a clear, well- 
modulated manner, we may seriously undertake 
the strengthening process. Now, it is well to 
bear in mind two things: first, voice grows by ju- 
dicious use; second, voice grows more rapidly 
and easily in warm weather than in cold weather. 

If our children go to the country early in the 
summer, as I earnestly hope they do, encourage 
them to run loose in the fields and woods, and 
fill the air all day with music. To a badly-reared 
child this recommendation would be puzzling, hav- 
ing been always accustomed to hear his vocal 
sounds termed " noise." But to our trained little 
one, familiar with the idea that melody, not dis- 
cord, is the great object of life, it is a suggestion 
which chimes in with his impulses. Let mother, 
aunts, and— yes, grandmothers, lock their dignity 
up in their closets for awhile, and accompany the 
children to their favorite outdoor haunts where 
they may freely indulge in the delightful privilege 
of exercising their lungs. There are so many ap- 
propriate ways of doing it that I am embarrassed 
in the selection of one or two special exercises. 
But perhaps professors of vocal culture are united 
18S 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

in endorsing the practice of loud counting, as one 
of the best known means of strengthening the 
vocal organs. It is merely this: 

Stand, with the chest expanded, inhale deeply, 
and let all the breath and voice out in a quick, 
explosive utterance of the word " one! " Inhale 
again, and shout "two!" And so on; counting 
ten the first day, and building up till you can 
count to two hundred without fatigue. It is best 
to use the middle pitch of the voice or one slightly 
lower. The result is about equal, in its hygienic 
effects, to the sawing of a quarter-cord of wood. 
Daily practice for two months will sometimes pro- 
duce an astounding change in a weak voice. 

I emphatically urge that the children should 
not be made to feel that their lessons in vocal cul- 
ture is task-work. It should be the most enjoy- 
able of their occupations, and probably will be, if 
their mother, or whoever directs them, enjoys the 
exercise herself. A very little formal instruction 
will suffice, if it is regular, for we are happily so 
constituted that occupations we ordinarily pursue 
under the name of pleasure may be made to con- 
duce to our physical culture. 

Reading aloud in the open air is an excellent 
exercise for strengthening the chest, if the reader 
does not lie in a hammock, or sit leaning against 
189 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

the back of his chair, or bend down over his book, 
with his chin in his hands; as people sometimes 
do when the weather is warm and provocative of 
indolence. Declaiming is better than reading, and, 
for their health's sake, all children should be 
taught to declaim stirring poems, although it is 
not wise to extend their audience beyond the 
family circle. 

If the child has both voice and musical ear, have 
him taught to sing, even if his other luxuries must 
be exceedingly circumscribed in consequence of 
expensive lessons. No mediocre tutoring is ad- 
missible, for poor teachers can work more harm 
than the most accomplished professors can undo. 
But a few good lessons, to inculcate correct prin- 
ciples and lay the foundation of subsequent cul- 
ture, are all the musical education that is indis- 
pensable in childhood. We do not want our chil- 
dren to spend time over mastering difficulties in 
musical expression, over roulades, cadences and 
trills; what is desired is to have them learn how 
to "place" their voices properly; an art which 
only the Italians seem to possess naturally, and 
which belongs by inheritance to their children, 
who produce without effort and in utter ignorance 
of method the most clear and forcible tones. 

The best foundation for singing is a course of 
190 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

good lessons in elocution. There, deep breathing 
is learned, also distinct articulation, and expres- 
sive utterance. Bad articulation is one of the com- 
monest faults with children, and one of the easiest 
to cure if dealt with intelligently. They must be 
taught the correct position of the three organs of 
speech: the tongue, mouth, and throat. We have 
already spoken of the " open throat," where the 
uvula, or little tongue on the roof of the soft 
palate, is raised. By holding a hand-mirror before 
the open mouth, the uvula can be seen. It tends 
to hang down and get in the way of the tone 
column, and must be trained to keep drawn up, 
or shortened. Gaping, or " thinking the gape," 
does this. 

The mouth has three different positions for 
making either a broad, a long, or a round sound. 
There is a simple exercise sometimes taught in 
schools which illustrates this principle, called the 
" e, ah, oo " exercise. Flexibility of the lips has 
much to do with distinctness of utterance, and 
there is such significance in the shape of a person's 
mouth that a professor of elocution can tell by 
looking at a pupil's mouth just what faults he has 
there to deal with. 

The tongue is a more troublesome thing to con- 
trol. It should be trained to lie down flat in the 
191 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

mouth with the tip nearly touching the hard pal- 
ate, not pressed against the teeth. Very little 
should be seen of it even when the mouth is wide 
open. The sight of a person's tongue is a shock 
to any one of fastidious taste, and the habit some 
poor, neglected children have of protruding their 
tongues or rolling them about inside their mouths 
is indicative of the presence of certain defects of 
character that ought to receive careful attention. 

Whenever a child is careless about the effect his 
appearance has upon others, when he chooses to 
be grotesque and unseemly, or is indifferent as to 
whether his bearing is pleasant, his speech intel- 
ligible, and his whole attitude in harmony with 
the standard we have a right to expect him to at- 
tain to, there is but one thing to be done: culti- 
vate his sense of beauty. Lead him to emulate 
what is above him and aspire to perfection. Am- 
bitious natures require no outward stimulus to 
labor for self-improvement, but sluggish, indolent 
and dull temperaments need to have visible re- 
wards set before them. They have not imagina- 
tion enough to realize indefinite moral benefits 
and must be beguiled upward by the sight of 
tangible gifts hanging on the top bough of the 
tree we want them to climb. 

To children of the sensual temperament — and 
192 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

we must not shrink from recognizing one in our 
family group if signs betray him — we need not 
talk of abstract beauty or ideal goodness. We are 
obliged to appeal to them through that instinct 
which nature has given them in excess, and we 
must say: do this and you shall have that; please 
me in this thing and I will do the other to please 
you. It is not given to all children to bear them- 
selves creditably because it is not given to them 
to think purely. The loose, hanging under-lip 
and the craving appetite; the pursed-up mouth 
and the spiteful disposition; the wide-open lips 
and the vacant mind — we see them constantly, 
everywhere. The mere appliances of physical cul- 
ture cannot reform these physical crimes because 
they are fed by the running streams of deep, in- 
ward moral disorder. If you would change the 
form of your child's mouth, change his nature. 
Teach him vocal exercises, but imbue him with 
a desire to benefit by your instruction. Interpose 
between the joints of his mail of conceit a touch 
of self-dissatisfaction, of desire for improvement. 
The person who perceives his own faults is half 
cured, and no one is hopeless save that skeleton 
feasting at the table of humanity, the confirmed 
believer in his own perfection. An old woman of 
this ilk who had irritated an acquaintance by her 
i93 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

persistently stupid " nil admirari " policy and had 
finally been told that she was probably deficient in 
any capacity for understanding art and science, 
rejoined tartly, " Capacity! I could have had it if 
I had wanted it." 

Some withered hearts fancy that there is a kind 
of distinction in not wanting the best things. But 
one never cares for the virtue or the talent he has 
not sense enough to appreciate. The finer organ- 
ism yearns infinitely, but chaff satisfies swine. 
Fortunately, there is a degree of moral and mental 
and physical perfectibility in mere youth. No 
child exists for whom something more cannot be 
done than has ever yet been done; who cannot be 
educated into a finer, higher creature, until child- 
hood has gone and the hard period of maturity 
sets its seal of doom upon his progression. 

Take the baby under tender, watchful care, and 
train his powers of vocal expression, month by 
month, year by year, that the mechanical exercises 
may react upon his character, and by filling his 
memory with the sounds and forms of beauty lead 
him to prefer, merely through unconscious habit, 
chaste modes of self-expression. It is a pity that 
a person cannot ever thoroughly realize the qual- 
ity of his own voice; he has to trust the testimony 
of others as to its merits and defects. But when 
194 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

the ear is well trained it is more or less alive to 
personal melodies and dissonances, so the training 
of the ear is an important part of primary vocal 
culture. It is, consequently, better for several 
young children to be taught elocution and sing- 
ing together, than singly, so they may help one 
another by mutual criticism. We can bear with 
equanimity the having our own faults pointed out 
when we, in turn, point out the mistakes of our 
critics; and we realize more vividly the necessity 
for improving upon our own efforts when our fail- 
ures are reflected by other strugglers. 

Even in the milder forms of vocal culture, in 
articulation, enunciation, and expressive reading, 
there is distinct therapeutic value to the throat, 
the lungs and all the muscles, ligaments and carti- 
lages brought into exercise for the formation of 
voice. But in the higher forms there is greater 
value. Conversation is beneficial according to the 
degree of mental effort involved in it. Mere idle 
chatter is useless, but talk that is carried on with 
some care both for the thoughts and their expres- 
sion, brings into play our higher nerve centers, 
quickens our blood and induces an expansion of 
the chest. " Depression of the chest is a depres- 
sion of life," said Prof. Buchanan. " Thoracic de- 
i95 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

velopment is essential to life, to health, and to 
energy." 

Therefore, since declamation necessitates an 
upright carriage of the chest, it is superior to con- 
versation or reading, in its effects. Let mothers 
observe carefully the ordinary carriage of the 
child's chest, and if it is depressed, collapsed, 
make that child's other studies and occupations 
subordinate to the culture of his voice. Even if 
neighbors in town comment acridly upon the 
noise, encourage him to shout and sing in the 
house on rainy days when going out-of-doors is 
not advisable, and do everything possible to in- 
duce spontaneity and cheerfulness in the child. 
Joy, vitality, and an upright chest; discourage- 
ment, feebleness, and a depressed chest, are inev- 
itable accompaniments. We may often measure 
a person's increase of health by an increasingly 
elevated carriage of the chest and growing 
strength of voice. As in illness the voice grows 
more and more feeble, so in high health it becomes 
more forcible. If we compel a person to suppress 
the natural tones of his voice, we lower his normal 
vitality. Now, we thoughtlessly do this very often 
with our children. When they are singing at the 
top of their lungs, from pure happiness, we order 
them to " make less noise "; when they are racing 
196 



VOCAL EXPRESSION 

through the halls and shouting, we become in- 
censed at their " rude ways." Well, it is a pity 
the children may not develop their lung-power in 
the way that is natural to them. What shall we 
do about it? There is no shirking the alternative. 
We may have quiet, refined, weakly children, or 
romping, noisy, healthy children. But not con- 
tradictory virtues in the same child. 

There is one more suggestion in order before 
closing this brief survey of a large and important 
subject. It has been found that in disorders of 
the throat and lungs a high altitude is favorable 
for recovery. We no longer send patients having 
phthisis south, but to the mountains in the west; 
and if a child exhibits a chronic tendency to throat 
troubles, he should be taken at once to high 
ground. If not to the hills, then to the highest 
floor of the tallest house that can be hired. And 
get him to walk up the steps at least once every 
day, making a continuous tone in " ah " as. he 
climbs. Let the exercise not come upon him sud- 
denly! It is difficult when one is weak. Have him 
ascend one flight of stairs every day until he can 
ascend two, taking a full breath before attempt- 
ing the ascent, and letting his breath out slowly 
and gradually as he makes the tone. Then add 
another flight, and so on, until he can mount from 
197 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

the bottom to the top of the house rapidly and 
without fatigue, as a healthy child ought to be 
able to do. 

Climbing is capital exercise, if the body is held 
upright while ascending. Many persons stoop 
while mounting stairs and pant like over-tasked 
horses. One should always take a full breath at 
the bottom of a flight of stairs, either hold the 
breath completely or exhale smoothly and slowly 
while ascending, and when at the top, inhale 
deeply once or twice, expanding the chest as much 
as possible. This applies to hill climbing also, but 
natural children need no particular directions as 
to how to get to the top of a hill if there is some 
incentive to arriving at the summit. I suggest 
building a playhouse on the crest of some hill. A 
mother standing at the base might find it hard to 
attract her little one's attention, but the mutual 
calling up and down would be beneficial. And 
would not lead to public reprobation — in the 
country. 

198 



CHAPTER VIII 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 
" Every state of feeling arises by degrees, is maintained for a cer- 
tain time, and falls away by degrees. Pleasure is identified with 
the highest energy and most consummate balance of the powers of 
the system. Pain is identified with weakness, exhaustion, prostra- 
tion, or with loss of balance, with being obstructed and out of joint. 
The highest condition of well being is to have as many actual de. 
lights as we are able to sustain." — Alexander Bain. 



In George Sand's interesting picture of a child 
peasant, " Francois le Champi," she gives several 
instances of the little boy's great susceptibility to 
grief. Twice he fell into fainting fits resembling 
death, solely from the fear that his adopted mother 
was about to abandon him. Yet, he was appar- 
ently a strong, healthy child, calm and reticent in 
disposition. One would not have expected to find 
in a waif, inured to hardship and uncertainty, such 
supersensitiveness to imaginary perils, but the 
author drew her character from life. 

What a difference between Franqois and that 
other waif in whom the modern public has lately 
199 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

been so much interested; the little Yankee boy in 
" Eben Holden." Suddenly deprived of both par- 
ents by a frightful calamity calculated to stir the 
depths of feeling even in a mere child, this little 
lad cheerfully climbs into his traveling basket and 
goes upon his western pilgrimage with an unim- 
paired interest in all the adventures and amuse- 
ments life has to offer him. 

We have here one of those striking contrasts 
that are continually occurring between the sub- 
jective and objective natures. The former is prev- 
alent among the Latin races, the latter among 
the Teutonic. Our mixed American temperament 
partakes of both, and as one or the other has the 
preponderance we have the nervous, emotional in- 
dividual, easily stirred by suggestions of pain and 
calamity; or the practical, executive personage 
inclined to grasp benefits and enjoyments, and to 
be but slightly impressed by misfortunes. We 
often see, in the same family, children thus radi- 
cally differing in disposition. Some mysterious de- 
termination, inherent and involuntary, sends all 
the currents of energy into the channels that feed 
their emotional or intellectual existence, or per- 
haps merely their physical development; and the 
one grows up with a strong bias toward the moral, 
the other toward the intellectual, while the third 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

becomes merely a splendid animal, handsome, cold 
and selfish, with that profound and unconquerable 
egotism which is incapable of a single response to 
any solicitation not involving personal advantage. 
Undoubtedly the concentration of the entire 
energy of an individual upon the welfare of his 
bodily functions leads to the exaltation of health 
and strength. Moral and intellectual progress tax 
human powers severely; saints are fragile, savants 
unfeeling; neither have any energy to spare out- 
side the absorbing demands of their vocations. In 
the one class the body wastes away; in the other 
the emotions become atrophied. Every one has 
his part to perform in the world and he cannot 
freely choose it, but must obey the instinct which 
impels him. Nevertheless, although driven to 
fulfil our inevitable function, it is possible, through 
the use of means experience has discovered, to 
prevent the absolute sacrifice of personal welfare 
in the performance of our appointed task. The 
man in whom the moral sense is exalted may have 
some physical vigor; the intellectual man possess 
some capacity for affectionate relations; while the 
man whose essential bias is objective and the cur- 
rents of whose being set mostly to the things of 
the body, may have enough enlightenment as to 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

the sweetness and light of existence to prevent his 
thoughts becoming altogether sordid. 

It is the business of education to effect a par- 
tial balance of our threefold nature, the moral, 
the intellectual, and the physical, so that, although 
the native bias of the individual, which makes one 
part dominate the others, cannot be overcome, 
neither of the others may be starved. Training 
must begin very early to make any headway, for 
we have at once to nurse into vigor the child's 
feebler impulses and restrain the more powerful 
ones, which would otherwise completely master 
him. And it is essential for his ultimate welfare 
that even the instincts of his physical life should 
be held in check, as although a vigorous animal 
nature seems, superficially considered, to have all 
the qualities requisite to health, it contains within 
itself the possibilities of destruction through the 
force of its instincts, which are too eager for self- 
gratification. 

We are, therefore, to be careful about encour- 
aging in the infant that predominance of desire for 
physical gratifications which obtains such fright- 
ful proportions in the majority of badly reared 
children. Too often parents carelessly feed the 
fires of a child's sensual nature by constantly 
provoking his lower appetites. They offer him 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

sweets when he is not hungry, thus suggesting to 
him that eating may be a pleasure apart from its 
proper function. They incite him to exercise his 
strength in combat with his playfellows, awaken- 
ing feelings of ferocity which may have many un- 
foreseen consequences. In the male nature the 
same instincts that lead to warfare incite to lusts, 
and the little brute who loves to crush other boys 
under his heel will water the flowers of his desires 
with the tears of women. 

It is true that the first pleasures and pains that 
we are capable of feeling are those that are 
aroused by the organic senses. But very soon 
there is sensibility of a deeper sort, more inti- 
mately related to our moral nature. The baby re- 
sponds, a few weeks after birth, to affection; it 
shows, within a few months, susceptibility to the 
moods of those about it, being affected sympa- 
thetically by strong manifestations of grief or joy. 
Where a young child is absolutely stolid when 
those who are in his company are under the in- 
fluence of strong emotion, it shows either uncom- 
mon apathy of nature or else that no attempt has 
been made to develop his sympathies. For my 
own part, I believe that this cannot be undertaken 
too eariy. In treating any subject which involves 
consideration of psychology we run up against a 
.303 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

thousand conflicting theories, and are hampered 
in the deductions from our own observation and 
experience by the dogmatical assertions of ac- 
cepted authorities. Deferring to these superior 
authorities on almost all points, I must make an 
exception in favor of the idea that there is a more 
effective educational force than personal pain and 
pleasure. Instead of all other emotions being de- 
veloped out of fear, I believe that in superior na- 
tures the other emotions may follow out of love, 
and that even in coarser ones it may be made a 
powerful force. 

So, I would undertake, at the birth of the child, 
to promote sensibility and induce early apprecia- 
tion of affection. Let the first channels of feeling 
be made by the happier, gentler sensations, and 
the primary habits of its emotional life be those 
of peaceable adaptation to conditions, not of 
struggle and subjugation. Here, we must take 
issue with Bain, who advises that the first exhibi- 
tion of rebellion to circumstances made by the 
child should be met by the infliction of pain, 
sharp enough to make him prefer the suppression 
of his own impulse next time, to the necessity of 
having it suppressed by another. He, himself, re- 
luctantly acknowledges that sometimes the dis- 
cipline must be made so severe that one shrinks 
204 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

from applying it. Oh, let us renounce, once for 
all, this fancied necessity for meeting the natural 
impulses of a child's untrained animal nature by 
unmeasured brutality! Instead of "fighting the 
devil with fire," let us believe that an appearance 
of deviltry is simply an absence of good; and en- 
deavor to supply the. good. 

There is a formidable quality in every impulse 
corresponding to the same quality in the whole 
nature; capacity to develop and grow stronger by 
measuring itself against obstacles. Contradiction 
inflames, discipline nourishes, the passions. How 
feeble is the baby's first show of irritation; how 
violent its subsequent manifestation of temper 
when added to its dissatisfied mood is an imitation 
of the sternness of guardians who have sought to 
subdue instead of turning aside the wrathful cur- 
rent. The history of many a nursery is the his- 
tory of petty wars and tumults; and in the place 
of troops of children abounding in that fine vigor 
consisting in harmonious physical and moral 
health, which gives the greatest possible capacity 
for enjoyment, we have children everywhere who 
have formed from their birth habits of the indul- 
gence of unwholesome emotions leading to misery. 

Now, the intelligent guidance of a child's emo- 
tional nature consists of three things: the neglect 

205 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

of his vicious propensities, so that by the denial 
of attention they may be starved out, even as 
weeds shut off from air and water inevitably per- 
ish; the encouragement of his finer impulses, es- 
tablishing for them habits of supremacy which can 
scarcely afterward be overcome; and the gradual 
elevation of his whole character by means of the 
education of his faculties, so that he may not 
be victimized at any time by superstitions or ignor- 
ance, but guided by reason; a consummation 
which cannot, however, be expected before he 
shall have attained a dozen years. 

Up to that time there is a constant fluctuation 
of his instincts and impulses, inducing doubt in 
his guardians as to the efficiency of their methods, 
and their final outcome. But we should have 
patience and faith. Says Compayre: "Mobility, 
changeableness, with which a child is often re- 
proached, results often from his weakness; each 
one of his functions having only a very limited 
provision of strength at its disposal, and this being- 
soon exhausted, he is obliged to pass quickly from 
one occupation to another to exercise his different 
faculties, one after another." 

A baby or young child of two years passes from 
laughing to crying, from pleasure to discontent, 
not because it grows angry, but wear- The more 
206 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

intense its gratification, the more rapidly its energy 
in that direction is dissipated, and the sooner it 
is obliged to change to its opposite. Hence, we 
see the cruelty of exciting little children to ex- 
cessive hilarity, so using up in a short time the 
capacity for pleasure which, if better economized, 
would have extended over a much longer period. 
And we may deduce from this another lesson: if 
pleasure tends to exhaust itself by expression, so 
does pain. It is judicious to let the child have his 
little burst of sorrow, when there is occasion, and 
not oblige him to suppress tears, moans or com- 
plaints. After darkness, light comes. But dull 
grayness may hover for an indefinite period. The 
child who shows neither strong joy nor sorrow 
spontaneously, must have reserves of sullenness 
that arm him against the claims of affection. Bet- 
ter by far for the little one to have his small storm 
and clear his mental atmosphere than for him to 
bury his resentments in his soul and become per- 
manently embittered. Every one at some time 
realizes the truth of the poet's song, " A Little 
Weeping Would Ease My Heart." Tears and out- 
cries really do lessen pain by serving as channels 
for the outflow of energy, and the sensitive, excita- 
ble person must be permitted some expression for 
sufferings that would otherwise be unendurable. 
207 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

It is difficult to convince conscientious parents 
that in respect to those propensities toward venial 
faults most children exhibit quite early, neglect 
is better policy than discipline. But many times 
a child who accidentally finds naughtiness an in- 
teresting experiment would quickly weary of it 
if it were not for the commotion it makes in the 
family. To become an offender is to become im- 
portant, and nothing is more agreeable to young 
or old than that. One is apt, in times of tedium, 
to attract attention in some way, even if it in- 
volves making oneself odious. The desire for no- 
toriety is, in its incipient form, simply a determina- 
tion to become the center of something, and chil- 
dren show it as often and even more frankly than 
their elders. Now, every new path taken by any 
current of energy is a sort of pioneering. If the 
path is full of interest, the brain stores up recol- 
lections and makes a note for future reference. 
The next time the nerve-current wants to go 
somewhere, it chooses that same path. After 
awhile the channel becomes so well worn that 
going is not a matter of choice but of necessity; 
a sort of sliding down hill. In this way the child 
who makes a grotesque exhibition of contrariness 
and is met by a grave rebuke and repeated allu- 
sions to it, has the occurrence so thoroughly im- 
208 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

pressed upon his brain that there is a mechanical 
inclination for him to repeat the offense because 
it has grown so familiar. Conduct has, I think, 
a sort of social nature; things we have done often 
are old friends; even if we do not care for them 
we must make them welcome, while new phases 
of conduct have to make their way into our good 
graces, like other strangers. 

Is it not, then, desirable to make a child's small 
attempts at intractability dull affairs to him, so 
that he shall forget them? Every act that we dis- 
tinctly recollect we are inclined to do again, and 
the best thing that can happen to children is to 
have all their good acts marked by red letters, 
while their minor offenses are dropped into the 
gulf of forgetfulness. 

Concerning temper, that bugbear of the nurs- 
ery, there should be a more judicious reserve. It 
is unwise to accuse a child of being in a temper, 
or to fasten upon an excitable disposition the 
epithet of irascibility. Few things are worse for 
the health than a really strong fit of anger, and 
the first inclination toward one that a child ex- 
hibits ought to be diverted by the most tactful 
management of which his guardians are capable. 
Temper is, in the first place, uneasiness. In a 
young child it is nothing worse. He wakes in a 
209 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

fretful humor after a bad dream or some pangs 
of indigestion and looks upon the day with jaun- 
diced eyes. He is in the right condition to be 
made angry if he knew what it was. But if, hap- 
pily, the elder members of the family are habitually 
gentle and self-possessed, the crisis passes without 
explosion, and he gradually recovers tone under 
soothing influences. But given the presence and 
example of a parent also under the tyranny of a 
bad mood which is suffered to escape in flashing 
eyes, cross words or jerky movements, and the 
child must inevitably fall into disgrace by copying 
this ill humor. The consequent reproof settles the 
doubt as to the nature of his ill-feelings. He is 
reproved for temper. Saying to himself that he 
has a temper, he enjoys the possession. He im- 
proves it by exercise, until after awhile it becomes 
so troublesome that he is obliged to excuse him- 
self by saying that he cannot help it, his temper is 
too strong for him. 

What endless sermons now follow upon his 
"besetting sin" and the necessity of self-control! 
What years of struggle and trouble lie before 
him! And all because he was made to develop 
into a positive quality that which was at first a 
simple tendency toward irascibility. 

Having had much to do with children myself, 

2IO 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

I freely acknowledge that through the mere out- 
flowing of lively spirits at inconvenient times a 
child may be trying. Frolicsomeness readily 
passes the boundary of good sense, and the little 
one who inclines to turn all the necessary and 
serious duties of daily living into play makes a 
severe demand upon the fortitude of his elders. 
But I know of no duty in life from which one has 
a right to exempt himself because it is hard. And 
if we have the training of a child upon our hands 
it is absolutely necessary every hour and every 
moment to think of the bearing of the present 
upon the future, and care more for everything that 
makes for permanent welfare than for a little tem- 
porary ease. 

Consequently it must be borne in mind that with 
the same precautions we would use to carry across 
a rough piece of ground a delicate and valuable 
vase which a fall would shatter, we must assist the 
little child to pass through the first tender, sus- 
ceptible years without shocks to his emotional na- 
ture, until the worst period of tremulousness and 
instability is over. 

Anger, fear, bewilderment, all leave scars never 
to be quite outgrown. The little child who is in 
the habit of passing through a tempest almost 
every day loses as much mental strength as he 






THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

would lose in the opening of a vein. His spirit is 
wounded through the self-infliction of his own 
mood, and just as one sees, in moments of excite- 
ment, the mark made upon a person's face by an 
old wound redden and become prominent, so each 
irritating circumstance he is destined to encounter 
during life will smite that ancient weak spot and 
hurt him twenty times more because of the injury 
he already had. 

We do not attach sufficient importance to the 
benefits of a calm, peaceful life during childhood. 
Recently I listened to the complaint of a gover- 
ness in a family where the children had received 
from birth such ideal care and training that their 
lovely demeanor was almost a matter of uneasi- 
ness to persons accustomed to ordinary young- 
sters, that she thought it might be better if the 
faults of character which the children doubtless 
possessed, instead of lying concealed, showed 
themselves, so that they might be dealt with. 

It seems to me this is somewhat like suggesting 
that as the kitchen fire contains a latent capacity 
to set the chimney ablaze, it is desirable to throw 
on a cup of kerosine in order to bring about the 
possible result and have the worst over. But with 
proper care the worst need never happen. The 
rational, well-behaved child is as likely to be im- 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

mune during his whole life from outbreaks of de- 
moralization as the kitchen chimney is likely to 
grow old without the ordeal of fire. It is a singu- 
lar thing that some people are dubious about the 
propriety of natural conditions of peace and com- 
fort and are better satisfied with the unnatural 
condition of turmoil. 

No, it is better, as I suggested before, to ignore 
the possibilities of evil in the child's nature, and 
concentrate our efforts upon the work of develop- 
ing every tendency he shows for good. We have 
not only to train his strong faculties, but fan to 
life the faint and flickering breath of his aspira- 
tions. In the high-spirited child disregard flashes 
of temper and contrariness, and encourage his 
positive, emphatic nature to pour out its super- 
abundant energy in cheerfulness, active work, and 
demonstrative affection. In that ardent heart 
nurse the germ of tenderness so that courage and 
audacity may not make him hard; while in the 
cold and timid disposition we must labor to bring 
into bloom the torpid seeds of kindness and sym- 
pathy. 

Besides passing over to some extent faults of 

disposition which time may amend, and bringing 

out, with indefatigable perseverance, traits which 

belong to his higher nature, we are to lead the 

213 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

child out of his natural condition of ignorance into 
the free, enlightened state of knowledge, so that 
the education of his mind may aid the regenera- 
tion of his physical and moral nature. 

Mental training is not, of itself, sufficient to 
effect this. Learning may become an absorbing 
pursuit, yet influence scarcely any other faculty 
than the memory. It is astounding how little 
change is worked in an obstinate, narrow mind by 
merely intellectual discipline. I know persons who 
have become habituated to an atmosphere of 
knowledge, yet to whom it never occurs to make 
a single practical application of all the ethical prin- 
ciples, all the physiological facts they have learned. 
Apathetic, cold, and egotistical, learning best 
serves to exclude them more completely from 
that intimate companionship with everyday life 
where the constant friction of human thinking 
and human feeling strike out the sparks of our 
noblest inspirations. 

Ignorance may make one the prey of vice, plac- 
ing him at the mercy of evil companions, and mak- 
ing him receive with credulity ideas better in- 
structed minds would criticise if not wholly re- 
ject. But on the other hand, no stock of informa- 
tion will protect one from those influences toward 
moral disorder which reside within his own con- 
214 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

stitution. Does a man refrain from intoxication 
through recollecting at the instant he raises a glass 
to his lips all he knows as to the deadly effect of 
his debauch upon his body, soul, and fortunes? 
Do not men of the most cultured minds fall quite 
as often into excesses as the unlettered masses? 
Faculty deals with things that have trained it. 
Where the understanding, the memory, and the 
judgment have been developed by purely intellec- 
tual processes they will continue to exercise them- 
selves upon intellectual things. Practical things, 
daily acts and aims are out of their ken. The col- 
lege-bred rake can recite to you string upon 
string of the noble axioms of Plato and Aristotle, 
without that mechanical iteration making one 
echo in his own soul. He knows much without 
having experienced anything, and his mind has 
learned a thousand principles of conduct which his 
heart has never been made to feel. 

Not books, lectures, systems of philosophy or 
intellectual discipline refine those rude emo- 
tions which enter the world with us in a chaotic 
state that calls for wise control. They are to be 
governed, as every community of moral or human 
forces is governed where the rule is successful, by 
one chosen out of their own number: one of 
themselves, not a stranger. The judgment, for 
215 






'THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

instance, coming out of the intellectual realm, 
is neither welcome nor at home among the lively 
feelings. Let him return to his faculties, his 
thoughts, his philosophies. In our radical, pell- 
mell assembly of rowdy forces no polished orator is 
wanted, but a law-giver of strong nerve and force- 
ful vigor. Only the will is of any use as educator 
of the emotions. Only the habitual submission of 
instincts and impulses to that grand self-directing 
power which is the soul of character, can develop 
in our feelings the kind of intelligence which 
makes their preference incline toward high things 
and disdain low things. 

Not the person who knows that the restraint 
of one's appetites and passions is a good thing, 
but the person who has always restrained his ap- 
petites and passions, is to be trusted to act rightly. 
One day's resolute choosing of proper and ju- 
dicious conduct over riotous conduct is worth 
more in a boy's life than the reading of an entire 
column of moral philosophy. One throb of the 
heart at sight of a generous action, one involun- 
tary tear of sympathy lifts the girl higher toward 
heaven than any amount of reflecting over the 
scriptures, in the mood of passive compliance with 
rules. But feelings which die out when they have 
emitted a little flame, without giving any warmth 
216 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

which comforts another, are as useless to the per- 
son himself as to the world. An old writer — 
Robertson — says, " We get feeble and sickly in 
character when we feel strongly and cannot do the 
thing we feel." 

Sentimentality reacts banefully upon ourselves, 
and everything which tends to awaken and nour- 
ish it in young persons should be kept away from 
them. Three of the most potent stimulants to 
the emotions on their sentimental rather than on 
their active side, are the reading of romantic liter- 
ature, the seeing of melodramatic plays, and the 
listening to sensuous music. Just at present none 
of these pursuits are indulged in to any great ex- 
tent. The great wave of the practical which 
swept over the latter part of the last century en- 
gulfed many germs of disease that were wont to 
attack young imaginations. " Gushing " has been 
ridiculed out of existence, and our boys and girls 
are really almost too matter-of-fact and critical of 
everything which seems to make them appear 
foolish. But there are certain statistics which 
give proof of the survival of some unhealthy sus- 
ceptibilities, the more dangerous because so well 
concealed. It is doubtful if the strongest emotion 
of human nature, the attraction of one sex for its 
opposite, is not now as often perverted from its 
217 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

pure and natural office as it ever was in freer and 
coarser times. I do not know to how great an 
extent the modern girl is infected with that dis- 
order which at one time very nearly decimated our 
country of the loveliest flower that blooms in hu- 
man souls, a pure imagination. But among our 
boys the evil is acknowledged, by heads of board- 
ing-schools and institutions, to be very serious. 
Much of the insanity of modern times has its 
origin in perverted sexual passion. Those pitiful 
faults more common than will ever be acknowl- 
edged, among small children in the nurseries of 
the educated and opulent class as well as among 
the poor, who have less opportunity to be modest, 
are the forerunners of terrible vices. Yet they 
come from the child's ignorance, and are often 
due to accident rather than to vicious nurses. But 
let the mother look well to every surrounding of 
her children from their babyhood up. Let her 
see that no mechanical and external cause, such as 
the chafing of clothing, irritates their bodies; that 
no suggestion from foul lips inflames those in- 
stincts which should sleep through childhood. It 
is a heartrending sight to see a furtive look upon 
a dear little face which should be frank and clear. 
It is a grief beyond tears to discover, when it is 
too late to warn him, that a cherished child has 
218 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

wandered, even a single step, out of the path of 
purity and innocence, which is the only spot on 
earth always lit by the sunshine of heaven. 

So we must begin in time to train our baby's 
instincts, to awaken in him the pure, sweet affec- 
tion which is, more than anything else, a safeguard 
against evil. The maternal instinct in girls and 
its counterpart in boys, protection and care for 
something young and helpless, is nature's own 
suggestion for their right education. A wise 
mother will encourage her little girl to take as- 
siduous care of her dolls, to be as tender toward 
them as she can, and to think of them as children. 
I have found that from this care of her miniature 
household there creeps into a small maid's mind 
some odd, pretty, and not unimportant notions as 
to her future life-duties, and the natural relations 
between members of a family. I lately overheard 
a mere mite chattering to herself about getting a 
good father for her children when she married! 
Wise mite. I applaud that nursery training which 
makes children look forward to marriage as their 
natural function, and to becoming mothers and 
fathers, as the great privilege of life. 

The boy's embryo paternal instinct finds an out- 
let in the care of live pets. This may be the means 
of teaching him many useful things, especially re- 
219 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

sponsibility for the helpless. But I do not see why 
boys should not be more deliberately trained for 
their future duties of fatherhood ; why they should 
grow up believing that the tender emotions which 
develop into manhood's passion are meant solely 
for their own benefit and enjoyment. Why do we 
disguise the fact that all our emotional life ema- 
nates from and centers in the great function which 
enlightenment and refinement may turn to the 
noblest use our earth knows: that of bringing to 
fruition the possibilities that dwell within us of 
other, perhaps finer, lives than our own? 

Emotions are the buds of the soul. Let them 
be watered by sympathy, warmed by love, tended 
by the most watchful care. We can only be sure 
of our children's safety when confidential relations 
exist between ourselves and them. And here is 
one of the advantages of fearlessness in a child, 
that he will confide to his mother the thoughts 
that torment him after some unhappy chance in- 
tercourse with a badly reared little one. Under- 
standing opportunely the bent his mind is taking, 
she may exert her influence to restore his peace 
and strengthen his virtue. A child is invulnerable 
to attacks when his mother is his ally: when the 
glance of perfect mutual understanding conveys 
at once warning and reassurance. Too much care 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

concerning our children's friends cannot be exer- 
cised. They should never be permitted to be alone, 
even for the briefest space, with any strange child, 
before we have made ourselves acquainted both 
with his guardians, that we may know whether 
he has been well reared, and with the child him- 
self, so we may be sure of his character. 

More harm can be wrought in an instant by a 
bad companion than can be undone in a lifetime. 
Eternal vigilance during our little one's early 
years is the price of his safety. But just as soon 
as he can comprehend the sacredness of a promise, 
a mother should explain to him the necessity of 
keeping his own body in a state of absolute purity 
for the sake of his own health and pledge him to 
do this. Not many words are necessary, nor, ex- 
cept with children whose full-blooded tempera- 
ment makes them liable to attacks of sensuality, 
need a parent feel uneasy. Imbue the child with 
strong self-respect, cultivate his self-reliance, cour- 
age, and candor. Keep him occupied in a whole- 
some manner, out in the full light of day. And 
take care of all those plays and games which pro- 
voke overt fancies and offer opportunities for 
their fulfillment. Friendships between little boys 
and girls ought to be as innocent and harmless as 
they are agreeable and natural. Unless their 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

hearts are sullied by those coarse, silly ideas some 
adults think it amusing to suggest to them, their 
frank liking will not be tinged either with senti- 
mentality or sensuality. 

The first leads to the second. One should never 
dream of implanting in a child's mind premature 
conceptions of " beaus " and " sweethearts." The 
words adhere in their memories, the ideas fasten 
upon their consciousness. Then come heated 
fancies, rivalries, jealousy, and all the troop of ills 
that attend full-grown passions, none the less real 
for being miniature. That child is blessed whose 
heart has never known any anxiousness in his af- 
fections; whose relations have been natural and 
simple, even cool in their chasteness. The ideal 
of both maidenhood and young manhood is vir- 
ginity of soul, the wealth of reserved power which 
has never squandered itself in those coquetries 
which cost the heart too dear. 

However charming and innocent the friendships 
between little boys and girls, the period arrives 
when it may be quite as well for them not to be 
intimately thrown together. Between the years 
of twelve and fifteen there takes place a mighty 
wrestle between that determination of nature for 
the propagation of all her species, that exists in 
us as sexual instinct, and that differentiated im- 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

pulse of human beings toward progress which we 
call the ambition for individuality. 

Sacrifice self, with all its fine possibilities, for 
the passion of the hour, counsels that tempting 
voice that is a survival of our lower ancestry. 
And among the young people of rude, wild coun- 
tries there comes about then those wild carnivals 
which make more civilized nations shudder. But 
we can hardly allow ourselves to think that be- 
tween savages and ourselves there is a bottomless 
gulf. There is a little savage buttoned up under 
the waistcoat of our own fine lad, and panting be- 
neath the bodice of our own fair young daughter. 
Injudicious attachments, reckless unions are com- 
mon enough to make us realize the benefits of 
self-control in the young. And even if the con- 
duct is irreproachable, and either worldly wisdom 
or a sense of duty keeps them circumspect, their 
minds may be in a state of extreme disturbance. 

There are young girls who spend hours in the 
privacy of their chambers, writing amatory notes 
that are never meant to be sent, but that serve 
as a safety-valve for the fever in their imagina- 
tions. Boys usually seek more forceful but quite 
as secret outlets for their feelings. And they are 
all miserably dissipating their strength and de- 
stroying the freshness of their hearts, if not abso- 
223 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

lutely inducing a susceptibility of the emotions 
that will bring on hysteria and kindred disorders 
of the nervous system. 

But these personal attachments, either to real 
individuals or, as not rarely happens when the 
temperament is poetic and the nature refined, to 
some ideal personage, either a creation of fancy 
or a being dwelling in the pages of a novel, are 
not the sole resource of these involuntarily sen- 
suous impulses resulting from the period of de- 
velopment, not from depravity. 

There is another form of the disorder that is 
recognized as a distinct malady among physicians 
and pathologists, but not generally understood by 
parents and educators. It is religious mania. 
There have ever been, there will ever be, two ways 
for the religious instinct to express itself. The 
one is a steady impulse toward the good, the true, 
and the beautiful, a resolute elevation of thought 
and conduct, day by day, toward the highest type 
and standard revealed to one's soul. Love and 
adoration enter into it, but they are accompanied 
by a fine sense of respect for human nature, which 
has within itself the seed of the divine. The 
other is simple worship of Power, as it is felt 
through all those dread manifestations of physical 
forces which make the animal nature in us tremble. 
224 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

It is a passive prostration of oneself, a self-abased 
ecstacy, an unconscious revel of the sensuous na- 
ture in which contempt for one's own person 
and delight in a feeling of slavery to a Master 
make up a masquerade of the passions which is 
at once delusive to the reason and disastrous to 
the heart. 

I will transcribe here a few sentences from an 
extraordinary work originally written in Latin and 
meant only for the medical profession, but some 
portions of which would be of unbounded benefit 
if read by all educators: 

" At puberty there is manifested through the 
increase of feelings and ideas it engenders the 
significance of the sexual factor in mental life. 
The psychological reaction of the sexual impulse 
then expresses itself in a strange emotionality. 
Religion and poetry lie close to it. Religious en- 
thusiasms often occur at the time of puberty, and 
in the lives of saints and religious fanatics sexual 
episodes and sensuality constantly appear. In 
both religion and love the primary element is a 
feeling of dependence, and from the correspond- 
ence between the two states of consciousness, 
with reference 1 to the commanding importance of 
their objects, it follows that they both often attain 
an intensity that is irresistible, and which over- 
225 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

comes all opposing motives. Owing to their simi- 
larity both easily degenerate into silly enthusiasm, 
in which the intensity of feeling far surpasses the 
clearness and constancy of the ideas. When they 
are very intense one of these states may take the 
place of the other, or one appear by the side of the 
other, since every intensification of one element 
of mental life also intensifies its associations. And 
either of these mental states may become trans- 
formed into the impulse to cruelty, actively exer- 
cised or passively suffered." 

Parents usually are so edified by an outburst of 
religious enthusiasm in a young person that they 
do not scrutinize it to discover the elements of 
which it is compounded. Nor is it easy to un- 
derstand, for the victim does not know herself. 
But we may ascertain something of the nature of 
the impulse by finding out whether bigotry, intol- 
erance, and self-humiliation enter into it; whether 
there is great inclination for solitary communings 
and meditations; a tendency toward sacrifice of 
natural and rational enjoyments and for self-pun- 
ishments in the way of fastings and other hard- 
ships. All these have their root in the emotions, 
just as the higher, more developed religious life 
is the outcome of feeling and intellect in combina- 
tion. The last alone conduces to human progress 
226 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

and individual welfare, while the first is disastrous 
both to mind and body. 

Cases of physical prostration from religious 
ecstasia among young people are of frequent oc- 
currence. I will give an instance which is typical 
of many: A young girl of peculiar temperament, 
susceptible, dreamy, and intense, became passion- 
ately attached at the age of thirteen to a prepos- 
sessing and precocious boy of about her own age, 
and she mingled with her romantic devotion an 
extraordinary zeal in the performance of her re- 
ligious duties. Her whole existence became con- 
centrated in her sensations; her blood ceased to 
flow regularly, all the functions of her physical life 
became disordered. She began to have fainting- 
fits, then trouble with her spine. Losing the 
young lover for whom she had conceived an affec- 
tion which singularly united sensuous feeling with 
a purity and coldness of conduct only possible, 
perhaps, among our high-bred American girls, 
she became so ill that her education had to be sus- 

ipended for several years. Being sent to a con- 
vent school she developed another form of per- 
verted instinct very common in convents: over- 
weening fondness for a girl friend. This was suc- 
ceeded by other eccentricities which lasted until 
youth's fevers were cooled by the exacting duties 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

of maturer life. But her whole youth was marred 
by the instability of her emotions and the conse- 
quent wear and tear of her nerves. 

The subject of overfondness for friends of the 
same sex is deserving of a little attention. Gener- 
ally parents know nothing of the heart-tragedies 
of children who conceal such experiences from a 
sense of shame; and also, because, as in all per- 
verted instincts, the pleasure is enhanced by 
secrecy. But attachments between two girls, or 
two boys, in which takes place a pitiful travesty of 
human nature's noblest and most awful passion, 
are by no means rare. There is a malady which 
attacts certain emotional temperaments which 
have been somewhat cowed and violated in their 
natural dignity by parental tyranny, a diseased ap- 
petite of the heart, similar to some abnormal crav- 
ings of a spoiled palate. It is a desire for master- 
ful affection, a curious yearning to be loved and 
hurt at the same time, and it expresses itself in 
faithful, submissive attachment to a domineering 
companion who embodies for the time being the 
tyrant enshrined in imagination as the ideal. A 
child who is constituted to feel in this way is 
destined to be torn throughout her life by throes 
of passion, for she furnishes an instance of that 
singular physique in which vital heat lies beneath 
228 



CULTURE OF THE EMOTIONS 

drifts of snow, and that must be stimulated to 
pleasure through the stings of pain. Where re- 
fined sensibilities and mental strength accompany 
this temperament we have all the elements neces- 
sary for one of those dire tragedies of a woman's 
life the world is constantly witnessing without 
having the genius to comprehend or the humanity 
to pardon. 

Let parents observe keenly all those signs of 
their children's disposition which bear upon their 
temperaments and instincts. Let them keep in- 
violate the sanctuary of childhood's pure fancies; 
nor ever stir up by any passion of their own a 
slumbering tendency toward emotional excite- 
ment. If there were no other reason for the 
avoidance of physical punishments in the nursery, 
a sufficient one resides in its provocation of the 
animal instincts. More cases of dementia and 
ruined nerves originate in parental severity than 
will ever be known. All the passions being- 
brothers, setting a match to a single one fires the 
whole train. Arouse persistently a feeling of 
anger and revenge in a boy, and all his other in- 
stincts will become correspondingly lively. But 
on the other hand, the culture of his finer tastes 
and sentiments will refine his whole nature. The 
persistent training of his self-respect is the only 
229 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

way of giving backbone to his character. Make 
the girl and boy both believe in their own innate 
rectitude and nobility: develop their will in com- 
bination with their conscience, that they may be 
able without much effort to establish a healthy 
balance between all their emotions. And so they 
may go through life in cheerful, serene activity, 
capable of continually experiencing those enjoy- 
ments which exhaust and depress natures that 
have been enfeebled through excessive emotion- 
ality 

230 



CHAPTER IX 

DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

"Idiocy is a specific infirmity of the cranio-spinal axis, produced 
by deficiency of nutrition in utero and in neo-nati. At the time 
when deficiency of nutrition takes place it stops the foetal progress, 
and gives permanency to the transitory type through which the foetus 
was passing; these transient types being to some extent analogous to 
the persistent forms of the lower animals." — E. Seguin. 

In a certain school for girls of the old-fashioned 
order, where the custom of giving prizes upon the 
basis of letter-perfect recitations was rigidly fol- 
lowed, the principal said regretfully to one of her 
brightest pupils, " You have done so well during 
the year that it is a pity you did not do a little 
better, and reach the required standard." 

This same regret is continually being expressed 
in different circumstances by friends of promising 
individuals who through some slight lapses, either 
in performance or capacity, fail to compass what 
was expected of them, what, according to indica- 
tions, they were naturally bound to accomplish. 
We are continually being disappointed in our 
friends as well as in ourselves. Emerson had rea- 
231 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

son to say, " We are greatly too liberal in our 
construction of each other's faculty and promise. 
Exactly what the parties have already done, they 
shall do again; but that which we inferred from 
their nature and inception, they will not do. That 
is in nature, but not in them." 

The mistakes we make are not, however, very 
singular. The line between perfection and imper- 
fection is sometimes very thin and faint; scarcely 
perceptible, yet it makes all the difference. And 
the line between genius and insanity, between 
monomania and crime, between defectiveness and 
idiocy, and between buoyant, radiant health and 
the fictitious, feverish strength of disease: so 
slight, that we are misled at every turn, and only 
the expert, experienced eye, trained to interpret 
symptoms and gauge the quality and degree of 
power that lies back of misleading appearances, 
can prophesy the outcome of a person's nature 
with any approach to correctness. 

Especially with children are our suppositions 
liable to be mistaken. Many spurts of brightness, 
many signs of talent, die away soon after making 
an appearance, and many puny and seemingly 
worthless specimens develop a strength and ca- 
pacity that justifies the parental tenderness which 
has spent itself freely on their behalf. Indeed, we 
must with the young make large allowance for 
232 






DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

probable improvement in every respect, even 
structure, for very seldom is there born into the 
world a child who is perfect physically and men- 
tally, who fulfills that ideal which all of us have 
in our minds, of a completely beautiful, symmet- 
rical being. It is astonishing how very few really 
healthy, wholesome looking people there are com- 
pared with the crowds of ill-formed, diseased, dis- 
ordered creatures pushing their way through the 
world despite their incapacities, yet weary and 
suffering from the strain to which they must sub- 
ject themselves. 

Most adults consume each day all the force na- 
ture supplies to them. They have no reserve 
strength to employ in parenthood. How is it pos- 
sible for jaded, nervous, feeble men and women to 
provide that abundance of rich blood and spiritual 
vitality demanded by this supreme function? The 
offspring they persist in having get merely the 
dregs of their exhausted life, and must be nursed 
and coaxed by every device known to medical 
science to sustain the burdens of an existence they 
scarcely deem worth the while. 

The other day I carefully scrutinized the passen- 
gers of a crowded street-car; a fairly representa- 
tive showing of middle-class city people, and one 
that would not appear ill -looking under ordinary 
*33 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

circumstances. But being at the time possessed 
with an earnest desire to find something which 
should embody my ideal of health and symmetry, 
I found all the distinct departures from it which 
confronted me disappointing and disheartening. 

First came an elderly woman, whose anxious, 
withered face betrayed the presence about her of 
one of those hopeless internal maladies which 
slowly consume life without releasing their victim 
for a single day's happiness. Next to her sat a 
rough sort of man; a hard worker evidently, by his 
sinewy hands, and a hard drinker, as his bloated 
features plainly disclosed. A little messenger 
boy's precocious face, already deprived of its 
natural childish freshness by premature contact 
with the world, peered forth, nearly concealed by 
the flowing draperies of a lovely young woman 
occupying the adjoining seat. At first sight she 
was lovely, but closer inspection discovered that 
the loveliness was made up of elegant, tasteful 
clothes, of graceful, dignified bearing, and a deli- 
cacy of feature and complexion too strongly em- 
phasized by the indifferent droop of the eyelids 
over large, limpid blue eyes in which some of the 
lenses were yellow, some red, while beneath were 
the dark hollows which late hours and unwhole- 
some diet create. 

234 



DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

But the fair, fragile creature was an houri com- 
pared with her neighbor, a swarthy girl whose 
scowl and heavy, swollen cheeks must have be- 
longed either to neuralgia or the mumps. She 
pushed rather spitefully against a boy of about a 
dozen years in whom one perceived at a single 
glance a specimen of that immense class so widely 
scattered amongst us that its presence scarcely pro- 
vokes comment, and is sometimes not even recog- 
nized. This child was undoubtedly a Caucasian, 
possibly of pure American blood. But he belonged 
to the type of defectives termed by physicians the 
" Mongolian," on account of their resemblance, 
physically and mentally, to that race. His muddy 
skin was drawn loosely over a bulging narrow 
forehead, his shapeless nose matched a mouth as 
bad, which, of course, hung open. Vacant eyes, 
pendant head, shoulders drawn forward, and hands 
listless and uneasy, filled up the lines of a picture 
as sad as it is common. 

And probably that boy was sent out daily from 
the home where his presence was a torment, to 
some primary school, where a zealous teacher 
vainly wearies herself in trying to stimulate his 
backward mind to keep up with a class. 

Who is responsible for forcing such an incom- 
plete product upon the world? Not that bright- 
235 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

eyed, sharp-featured dwarf, exquisitely dressed, 
yet as miserable probably as the man who in a fit 
of absent-mindedness has just dropped his um- 
brella against her, and now raises his hat from a 
bald head to apologize. Bald, and not yet thirty. 
Haggard and sallow, yet refined in looks and 
manner ; a gentleman out-at-elbows, and likely to 
remain so, for there is a lack of practical common 
sense and acuteness in his soft, wandering gaze, 
and his thin hands would probably be as uncer- 
tain in their hold upon implements of labor as 
upon his umbrella. 

Well, there is left a fleshy, fine-looking blonde, 
all rich clothes, veil, and powder; a tired young 
seamstress with a large bundle, and a couple of 
pretty Jewish women, very much " of the earth, 
earthy," with their black eyes, white skins, and 
red, loose lips. 

In all the crowd is not one wholesome, motherly 
woman — not even the sallow, good-natured Swiss 
who is stuffing a cross baby with a bottle of fennel- 
tea — nor one man a wise child would select for 
its father. But the children come, God help them, 
and all these people have families at home. 

If some potent, kind fairy could have gone 

through that car, or could go through any city 

crowd, intent upon bringing order and perfection 

236 






DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

out of this chaos of human weaknesses, what mar- 
vels might not be wrought by a single touch in 
the right place! The straightening of a feature 
here, the invigorating of another's weak limbs, 
the quickening of a morbid blood-current, the re- 
moval of a diseased growth, all the thousand and 
one things which science essays constantly to do, 
and which can never be effectually done in this 
erring world. Between health and disease is, as 
we see, so slight a line. The best among us is 
never surely and permanently on the safe side, and 
if we are well born we may yet throw ourselves 
away. But may destiny, which is, after all, human 
will, arrange for our entering into life whole and 
sound; may parental love and foresight avoid 
foisting upon helpless offspring little weaknesses 
and defects which wisdom may often prevent, but 
affection can never cure; defects so slight that in 
infancy they are often overlooked or disregarded, 
until they grow strong and overmastering, and the 
terrible truth bursts upon the family that it pos- 
sesses an abnormal child. 

Heredity is always accountable for the tendency 
to departure from the normal type, but the direct 
cause of the development of such a latent ten- 
dency is insufficient nourishment, either before or 
soon after birth. We must bear in mind that the 
237 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

brain of the unborn child receives all that power 
which makes its faculties out of the food the 
mother takes into her system, and every transient 
disturbance of her digestion interferes with this 
assimilation, and weakens the mind of her off- 
spring. 

The merest allusion must suffice here to a sub- 
ject so solemn and weighty that I intend dealing 
with it to the best of my ability in a future work. 
Now we will pass on to the consideration of the 
child after it has made its appearance among us, 
and has to be accepted, such as it is, as a member 
of the family and a citizen of the world, for the 
term of its natural life. 

Far too little pains is expended by most phy- 
sicians in the examination of infants they help to 
bring into the world. A hasty look, and the little 
thing is passed over to its nurse to deal with ac- 
cording to her knowledge or ignorance. A con- 
scientious doctor will accord it some attention 
from day to day, at least for a couple of weeks, 
but he usually rests satisfied with the report of the 
nurse, and as the child is generally asleep when he 
comes he has small opportunity, even if he has 
the rare skill, to discover any signs of mental de- 
ficiency in the newcomer. 

It is true that the appearance of the new-born 
238 



DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

baby cannot be relied upon to determine its posi- 
tive character. Sometimes there is a distortion of 
its limbs and head from mechanical causes, and 
a frightful-looking child may within a short time 
become shapely and natural. But if after the lapse 
of a week or so there does not take place such 
an adjustment between the different parts of its 
body as to establish a reasonable degree of sym- 
metry, parents should insist upon rinding out the 
reason. In many instances the right treatment 
given in time would arrest the progress of an in- 
cipient mental malady ; and in all cases where a 
child is defective from congenital causes, and little 
or nothing can be done by science to bestow upon 
it that sanity which it has never possessed, it is 
highly desirable that every one should be 
thoroughly aware of the circumstance, both in the 
interest of the child and of society. Great injus- 
tice is often committed against the child of feeble 
powers by exacting of him conformity to ordinary 
requirements. Even from the first a mentally de- 
ficient child will not be able to exercise his will 
to the extent practiced by a healthy one. He will 
exhibit weakness in movements of the head and 
hands, his thumbs turn in, his limbs are flaccid, 
his spine and neck are devoid of strength. He 
either cries too much or shows a placidity and in- 
2 39 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

dolence that makes all his progress painfully slow 
until his limit is finally reached, and he shows un- 
mistakable signs of arrested development. 

One of the first and plainest signs of idiocy, 
imbecility, or that feebleness which is to pass into 
one or the other, is the possession of an illy pro- 
portioned form. Maniacs are often handsome in 
childhood, and almost up to the time of their de- 
parture from sanity; but imbeciles always have 
some organic irregularity, usually about the head. 
As a well-balanced mind, with several faculties 
equally powerful and active, is superior to the 
mind highly specialized in one direction and weak 
in others, so a symmetrical body, conforming in 
size and shape to the average of the race to which 
the person belongs, is a surer indication of a sound 
make-up than one or more exceedingly fine fea- 
tures, with the rest out of correspondence. Thus, 
it often happens that an abnormal — or, to speak 
more explicitly, an anormal child— will have won- 
derfully beautiful hair, or hands, or eyes, which 
are spoken of as its " redeeming feature." The 
eyes, particularly of persons destined to fall under 
the curse of emotional insanity, are apt to be of 
remarkable size and brilliancy, in great contrast 
with a badly shaped nose or mouth. The posses- 
sion of any one exceedingly beautiful or notably 
240 



DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

ugly feature is a mark of internal lack of harmony 
which we should do well to note. Nature sets up 
her warning signal on a human countenance by 
making some one feature unduly prominent, so 
that it is impossible to look at the person without 
thinking of the thing that is characteristic. And 
yet we seldom take the lesson to heart. Every 
day we take into our confidence persons who bear 
upon their countenances the plain stamp of unre- 
liability; we do business with rascals and incapa- 
bles; we expect the miracle of a contradiction be- 
tween outward form and the soul it enshrines. 
But the miracle does not happen. Homely people 
are sometimes saints, lovely persons demons, capa- 
ble people frail looking, and kindly ones repellant. 
But all this is according to this law; such persons 
have qualities that are not in harmony with the 
general tenor of their nature. They have some- 
thing, both physically and mentally, which does 
not belong to them at all, and this something is 
sure to impress us if we trust our instinct. How 
often it happens that experience verifies our first 
impressions of a person and shakes convictions 
gained later in our acquaintance. Undoubtedly 
this is because at first sight anything which is 
prominent in man, woman, or child, strikes us with 
one of those rapid bursts which seem like a revela- 
241 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

tion; it comes, it is gone; we pass on to the scru- 
tiny of everything in general, and presently forget 
the detail which was the herald of the whole char- 
acter. Frequently we pride ourselves upon the 
control we gain over mere fleeting, instinctive im- 
pressions, as if they were something out of reason. 
I believe, however, that there is a scientific founda- 
tion for the idea that we should attend to any 
shock the first impression of a new acquaintance 
conveys to us. We could not instantly become 
aware of any one particular physical feature or 
mental characteristic in a person unless that thing 
was abnormally strong, so as to be out of pro- 
portion with the rest of him. And in that case 
there is disease, in so much as is constituted by de- 
parture from the perfect standard of symmetry. 

But a nature which, meager or rich, slightly en- 
dowed, or greatly gifted, is true to itself in all its 
lines, is well proportioned, so that its activities 
will be normal and regular; and it consequently 
never makes any startling impression upon our 
senses. The large-framed, large-featured man 
who looks a little gaunt and severe by the side of 
lesser specimens will yet present no aspect which 
is disagreeable, if his mind and heart correspond 
with the generous lines of his person; the petite 
woman has a certain witchery of her own when no 
242 



DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

unduly large feature suggests the stunting of the 
rest. Throughout the entire realm of nature, that 
plant, that animal, that human being is most 
nearly perfect after its kind when the whole of it 
is satisfying without our being able to precisely 
determine wherein the charm resides. Whenever 
we become conscious at the outset that a new 
acquaintance makes an agreeable impression upon 
us, not by any effort put forth, but because of 
something indefinable in his personality, we may 
be sure that we have encountered a well-balanced 
individual, gifted with that highest, best gift na- 
ture can bestow upon man — perfect sanity. This 
is the only thing that can give us permanent grati- 
fication, because human nature is so constituted 
that it has an unquenchable craving for common- 
place goodness, for a return to that average from 
which every great gift as well as every missing 
faculty is a departure. We all love the regular, 
the normal, the harmonious, even though certain 
unhappy eccentricities in our own constitution 
may draw us out of the straight path in pursuit 
of the extraordinary or horrible. Genius fears 
and distrusts its own one-sided development and 
admires people who have nothing else to distin- 
guish them but the faculty of being rational; while 
lunatics and imbeciles yield to the authority of the 
243 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

orderly mind whose contact evokes in them that 
instinctive desire for harmony which never quite 
leaves the most hopelessly afflicted soul. 

Now, this sensitiveness which we all possess to 
some extent, to what is normal, gives us, if we 
choose to use it, an infallible power of interpret- 
ing signs of abnormality. We are in the habit of 
deliberately blinding ourselves to the mental de- 
ficiencies of the members of our own family, and 
both from pride and affection we are usually the 
last to recognize dementia or imbecility in our 
children. Yet it is through the timely under- 
standing of its deficiency by a parent that a de- 
mented or feeble-minded child is to be rescued, if 
at all, from the worst fate which can befall it: that 
of being sent out into the world to fight its way 
among the strong, who will ruthlessly stamp out 
the feeble spark of its existence. 

Let a mother, then, deem it the truest kindness 
to see her child as he is; not as she wishes he 
might be. Let her measure him from time to time 
against that average standard of physical and 
mental soundness which she can readily acquaint 
herself with by the study of some such book as 
Perez' " First Three Years of Childhood," or 
Preyer's " Infant Mind." Let her assure herself 
that in form and character the child is syrrmiet- 
244 



DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

rical, or if anything monstrous becomes apparent 
— and every glaring defect is monstrous — let her 
hasten to take the alarm and secure expert judg- 
ment upon the case, and subsequently give par- 
ticular care and attention to the young patient, of 
whom she may be hopeful if any improvement 
takes place; for it is characteristic of organic and 
incurable diseases of the brain that from first to 
last they steadily grow worse. 

Slight deviations from the normal which arise 
from disordered nerves, not from defective struc- 
ture of the brain, are usually curable by wise treat- 
ment. Hysteria, perversions of taste, feverish 
imagination, excessive irritability, melancholia, 
and secretiveness are the most common symp- 
toms of approaching dementia. Of these, the last 
two are the most alarming, and when manifested 
at an early age demand close attention. Chorea, 
convulsions, fits of screaming, and sometimes faint- 
ing are caused by that internal force which is 
warring against its environment and striving to 
bring about the destruction of the individual. 
Any twitching of the features or persistent rest- 
lessness of the fingers indicates deep-seated ner- 
vous disorder. Emotional insanity grows out of 
one's inability to bring all the activities of all his 
organs under the control of his will, and there are 
245 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

cases where even the apparently insignificant cir- 
cumstance of a person's inability to keep from 
twirling his thumbs, or counting the " devil's 
tattoo " with his fingers was the first step in a 
career of insanity. 

Therefore, we must labor assiduously to train 
the nervous, emotional child to be quiet in de- 
meanor, and to conserve his energy, not waste it 
in automatic motions. Let him frolic as much as 
he will, but not make any tense, clock-like beats 
with hands or feet, nor lock his teeth, nor hold 
himself rigid. Relaxation is the gospel for highly 
wrought nerves, and the young person who is 
never at his ease, who is always either at work 
or in a state of apathetic indolence, is seriously 
astray. 

While we may protect sensitive natures to some 
extent from those circumstances that are calcu- 
lated to destroy a mental balance too delicately 
poised to stand shocks, we cannot prevent the 
sure development of a defect which is congenital. 
Not all the efforts of science, not a mother's 
prayers and tears, nor a father's sacrifices can give 
to the living child that which it should have re- 
ceived before its birth, and the faculty which is 
lacking when it enters the world will never belong 
to it in this life. So reads the formula of experi- 
246 






DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

ence in every institution and hospital where dis- 
eased brains are being treated, and outside of 
whose walls parents and friends form in those 
dreary battalions that are led by forlorn hopes. I 
think that all those among us who have dear ones 
so awfully doomed to death in life will never en- 
tirely renounce the belief that the steady flame of 
our love and devotion may not some time kindle 
the dead embers of these poor souls. But it can 
never be. When a mind which was originally 
normal, although fragile, is injured by a shock, it 
may recover to all outward appearance, and the 
insane often seem to get well. But either they 
themselves, or their descendants, revert to a disor- 
dered condition. Acute manias often pass, leav- 
ing the patient rational, but every experienced at- 
tendant upon dements knows that when the wild- 
ness of insanity settles down into imbecility there 
is nothing more to be done. The vital spark which 
kindles reason is gone. 

It follows then that the imbecile child must be 
looked upon from the beginning as incurable. 
The ordinary school can do nothing toward edu- 
cating him; the hospital cannot restore to him a 
mental health he never had. The home and the 
special training-school may by their united efforts 
develop such capacities as are susceptible of edu- 
247 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

cation, and equip him for his limited career, which 
can never be wide and free, like that of normal 
persons, but must be pursued under the protect- 
ing care of benevolent institutions, for his own 
sake, to prevent his falling a victim to the hard 
and cruel forces of the outer world. 

Upon this head I think it judicious to quote a 
few sentences from a recent booklet issued by a 
very thoughtful, careful author, himself deeply ex- 
perienced in the care of the class of whom he 
speaks. Says Doctor Martin W. Barr: 

" The relief to the home, the actual benefit to 
the State in the housing and care of the idiot and 
idio-imbecile (in institutions) can never be fully es- 
timated. It is reckoned, however, in a general 
way, that for every idiot sequestrated the energies 
of two, if not four, normal persons are returned to 
society." 

How true this is every one will perceive by tak- 
ing the trouble to think of that family which is 
almost certainly among his acquaintance, where 
a child is martyrizing everybody connected with 
him; a child recognized by outsiders as a defective 
creature, yet concerning whom the mother is in- 
defatigably hopeful, patient as an angel, and deaf 
to all suggestions to remove him from her own 
care. 

248 



DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

Within the park whose beautiful walks spread 
out before my eyes as I write this, I have number- 
less times encountered the imbecile child of a good 
family who throw about its tottering form the 
TEgis of their proud opulence. With bloated face, 
surrounded by a lovely fleece of short golden 
curls, unwieldy figure, and frightful expression, 
mingling vacancy with bestiality, this little girl 
tyrannizes over several brothers and sisters, and 
brings a blush to the cheeks of her mother and 
nurses by the notice she attracts, yet from which 
they obstinately refuse to withdraw her. " My 
health has been ruined and my life broken up — 
all on account of that little Maud," complained 
the mother in a moment of intense bitterness. 
Yet she weakly continues to sacrifice herself and 
the rest of her family rather than resign this poor 
little hopeless idiot to the care of an institution. 

This is one of the extreme cases where we 
recognize the duty of parents to provide special 
care for a defective child. But when it comes to 
deciding the destiny of children who are almost 
but not quite normal, the matter is much more 
difficult. Doctor Barr estimates that there are at 
this time about one hundred thousand mentally 
defective children in the United States, of whom 
the vast majority are at large and unacknowl- 
249 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

edged as defective by their families. These latter 
are probably high-grade imbeciles, the most dan- 
gerous to the community because, being regarded 
merely as eccentric, or " cranky," they are likely 
to marry and have offspring. 

" These are the backward children the schools 
complain of, who progress slowly as far as the or- 
dinary grammar school grade, frequently develop- 
ing an aptitude for music, drawing, and various in- 
dustries. They are often not recognized [as im- 
beciles] in seminary or college until under exces- 
sive pressure or the excitement of competition 
comes complete breakdown,— idiocy, insanity, or 
early death. So nearly normal are many of these 
that their defect would only be noticed by the in- 
itiated." 

It is not possible that parents should be una- 
ware of any persistent irregularities in the persons 
or characters of their children, but it is quite 
credible that they believe time alone will cure de- 
ficiencies and that it is not necessary to look upon 
a slight abnormality as a permanent evil. There 
is also a peculiar sentiment connected with the 
toleration of an " enfant arriere " : parents some- 
times feel in the depths of their hearts a bitter 
sense of their own responsibility for the inherited 
curse which makes them take their burden as a 
250 



DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

punishment of Providence. A heathen fancy, if 
we analyze it. Not our own good or evil fortune 
is the end which should be considered, but that 
of the rest of the family, of the community at 
large, and of the afflicted child himself. 

Careful investigation of training-schools for the 
mentally defective ought to satisfy the most 
doubtful parent that far wider opportunities are 
offered by the best of these institutions for the 
welfare and happiness of deficient children than 
can be obtained in their own homes. The 
methods of education followed are based upon the 
ideas of Pestalazzi, Froebel, and Rosseau, and are 
thoroughly humane and enlightened. " Kinder- 
garten, nature-studies, object-lessons, sloyd, and 
the many occupations included under the name of 
manual training all lend a successive and continu- 
ous stimulus to thinking and doing, while calis- 
thenics and military drill do everything that is pos- 
sible for the physical development of the pupils." 
And in addition the teachers exercise all their in- 
genuity to provide recreations and amusements 
for the children, realizing that all that can be done 
for them is to make them as good and as happy 
as possible for the term of their short lives. For 
the lives of mentally defective children are short; 
the long-lived arc exceptions to the rule. 
251 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

Cannot the mother, then, who holds in her arms 
a puny infant whose pathetic gaze stirs within her 
the deepest feelings of love and longing, be heroic 
enough to take the path of duty marked out be- 
fore her, and prepare both herself and her child 
for its inevitable fate? This duty has been indi- 
cated by one of our wisest modern educators, 
Edward Seguin, whose counsel is as sympathetic 
and judicious as it is uncompromising. He ad- 
vises that whenever features of idiocy are de- 
cidedly marked, the mother should visit the near- 
est institution for the training of mentally de- 
ficient children, see what is done there to remedy 
similar cases, and receive the instruction necessary 
to carry on the same training at home, until the 
time comes when she resigns her child to the in- 
stitution completely. 

It is assuredly best for the child to be prepared, 
as far as may be, for his future studies, by a pre- 
liminary training at the hands of a tender mother. 
He will thus form the natural associations be- 
tween the two parts of the same education re- 
ceived in his two homes. She should thoroughly 
convince herself as a preliminary to her endeavors 
that her defective child is not to be treated as a 
responsible, reasonable person. He is weak. He 
needs indulgence, sympathy, guidance, restraint, 
252 









DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

but should be exempt from the iron-clad rules of 
authority. From day to day he must be watched 
and his small duties regulated according to his 
varying powers. Ah! who knows how much suf- 
fering man entails upon his brother man by forc- 
ing a feebler nature up to the mark of the strong! 
We must be pitiful towards our afflicted children, 
and when signs of fatigue or depression appear 
suspend even their lightest tasks, and give them 
the privilege of that rest and recreation which is 
their only happiness. 

Most of their comfort, as also most of their 
improvement, must reach them through appeal to 
their senses; their bodies must be well cared for if 
such faculties as they possess are to be kept in a 
healthy condition. Even more than the normal 
child the mentally deficient child needs hygienic 
surroundings; the best of food and plenty of it, 
abundance of fresh air, frequent bathing, and a 
life at once cheerful, full of variety and free from 
excitement, hurry, and competition are necessary. 
Association with children of superior intelligence 
is in some respects baneful; chiefly through the 
dangerous tendency of the imbecile to become 
the dupe and butt of his brighter companions. 
One of the most odious traits of human nature is 
what seems to be an innate longing to hurt the 
253 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

thing which is disagreeably feeble, so that the 
sight of it offends our sense of fitness. Among 
the refined this instinct takes the form of 
exacting the banishment of the offender; but with 
the more thoughtless we see something like 
the propensity manifest in some of the lower 
species, to torment and harass that member of its 
own society who falls below the average in struc- 
ture and sense. Frances Power Cobbe gave to 
this vicious feeling the name of heteropathy, as be- 
ing the very reverse of benevolence. It is much 
in evidence among school children, and one sel- 
dom sees a more pitiful spectacle than an hysteri- 
cal child performing all sorts of wild antics for 
the derisive amusement of a crowd of youthful on- 
lookers. They cannot realize the harm they do, 
especially as their victim often appears to enjoy 
the horse-play himself. But it takes very little of 
this sort of sport to destroy the nerves of a child 
whose brain is already bewildered and ready to 
be dominated by the grotesque and ugly as soon 
as it has been revealed to him. 

This peculiarity is one of the unmistakable 
signs of an abnormal mind. Be sure that the little 
one who turns of his own accord from pretty 
things to what is ugly and wierd, who is fascinated 
by vicious acquaintances and very readily falls un- 
254 



DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

der their influence and who sees, wherever he 
goes, everything that is disagreeable, but never 
by any chance that which is grand and beautiful, 
is one of the unfortunates. It may be possible, 
by strictly excluding from his surroundings all 
those objects in which his diseased mind delights, 
and persistently presenting to him what is fair and 
lovely, to increase the small possibility he pos- 
sesses for appreciation of the beautiful. But alas! 
this culture is too severe a drain upon his vitality. 
The effort to rise to a moral and mental height 
so far above the limit of his understanding makes 
his poor brain dizzy. I have seen a mentally de- 
fective child, after struggling to keep up for 
awhile with the pace of a wiser companion and 
obey his lead toward the finer subjects of thought, 
exhibit signs of coma and convulsions. The strain 
is doubtless as terrible as it would be upon an or- 
dinary person to follow the metaphysical flights of 
Swedenborg or Schopenhauer; which is not pos- 
sible for, say, the man who is at present mowing 
our lawn, unless he should happen to be as learned 
as the gardener of the Duke of Argyle. 

There is logic, therefore, in Seguin's suggestion 
that backward children may to advantage be edu- 
cated with imbeciles. It seems hard, when the 
mental deficiencies of the child are slight, to rele- 
255 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

gate him to this class, and the too-hopeful parents 
can only resolve to do so by convincing them- 
selves that under the ordinary processes of educa- 
tion the child must inevitably grow worse, and, 
moreover, be unhappy. Among children who are 
a little brighter than himself perhaps, and at least 
not much more defective— for in good training- 
schools the pupils are most carefully graded— he 
is sure of companionship and sympathy. Unlike 
normal children, imbeciles are as a rule gentle to- 
ward their younger and weaker comrades. They 
are less quarrelsome than other children and, ex- 
cept when tending toward emotional insanity, 
more quiet and docile. Over-docility is, indeed, 
one of the phases of idiocy. The little one in a 
family who among other singularities has appar- 
ently no will of his own is to be regarded as an 
object of anxiety. 

Superficial respiration, fitful and feeble appetite, 
and a disposition toward one-sided movements, 
one side of the body being noticeably stronger 
than the other, are accompaniments of organic 
defects of brain. Perverted tastes are common, 
the child sometimes tearing plaster from the walls 
to eat, and swallowing the most nauseous com- 
pounds, apparently with no bad effects. In one 
instance a baby swallowed half a bottle of aconite 
256 



DEFECTIVE CHILDREN 

and recovered; living to drink up a glass of paint- 
water his brother was using, and rifle his mother's 
toilet table of everything available in the shape 
of perfume. This child exhibited many peculiari- 
ties of gait in infancy which were afterward out- 
grown. But one symptom after another developed 
itself until the sum total formed such a chain of 
evidence in favor of abnormality that his family 
relinquished him to the care of an institution. 

There seems no other solution to the problem 
w r hich many families are now pondering with bit- 
terness in their souls. The time to think was be- 
fore the child came. After he is here we must 
take him as Nature gives him into our hands. If 
sound and sane, we may receive him with rejoic- 
ing and rear him as one of ourselves. But if upon 
that embryo-being whose destiny was once ours to 
make or mar, there fell the curse of a blighted 
brain, we can only send him into one of those re- 
treats modern humanity has contrived for its 
members, where he may receive wiser if not more 
tender care than the most loving, patient parent 
can bestow. 

257 



CHAPTER X 



RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

"The instinct which sets people in exercise is one of the most 
natural of all instincts, and, where it is totally stopped, must have 
been hurt by some very injurious circumstances in the beginning, 
either of pampered will or perverted activity. The restlessness felt 
by nervous people is Nature's kindly intimation that they should 
bestir themselves." — Leigh Hunt. 



The child who has the good fortune to be well 
born and from the first well fed, clothed and 
housed, has still one supreme need to be satisfied: 
his instinct for outdoor life. In grown people 
this instinct is modified by so many considerations 
that despite all that can be urged in favor of out- 
door exercise they partake of it very sparingly, 
and usually confine themselves, and very often 
their children, to a short daily walk. So long as 
there is nothing to attract us out, even the most 
conscientious among us will take a little exercise 
in a perfunctory, spiritless way, and shirk it when 
we can. 

Edmund Checkley, one of the modern apostles 
of physical culture, probably forgot, when he in- 
258 



RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

sisted that walking is the best form of exercise 
and of itself sufficient for health, that walking 
does not occupy the mind nor give us any real 
diversion. We can take worries, cares, and anx- 
ious thoughts enough into the brightest sunshine 
and most bracing air to nullify almost all the good 
effects of a solitary walk. Nor are children al- 
ways in better case than their elders. Although 
not alone they are solitary if their guardians are 
uncommunicative and dull, as they often are; and 
if exempt from the greater anxieties of life they 
are not free from small frets of their own, being 
especially liable to a sense of satiety or ennui very 
depressing to vitality. How often we see little 
ones marching along beside their elders, wearing 
miserable faces, listless, weary, and always drag- 
ging back ; responding reluctantly to the frequent 
request to " come on," seeing no more purpose in 
it all than a horse in the treadmill. 

But even worse conditions attend one thing to 
which they are often subjected; that of taking 
their daily modicum of outdoor exercise as 
hangers-on to parental necessities; going shop- 
ping, for instance. If the great, universal wail of 
infantile woe could become articulate, surely one 
thought would be shrieked by thousands of baby 
tongues; that one and all, they loathe shopping! 
259 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

To the great department stores in cities which 
are distracting even to seasoned nerves, in their 
jam and bustle, they are drawn in go-carts and 
left in vestibules under the care of liveried " little 
fathers," who become jaded enough, poor fellows, 
by their onerous responsibilities. It is a curious 
sight to see this experienced young functionary 
at his work, thrusting an ivory ring in one baby's 
open mouth, jostling another uneasy one up and 
down, and exhausting his ingenuity to pacify still 
another, who has broken into shrieks and roars 
which awaken small slumberers and arouse emula- 
tion in sundry members of his quondam family, 
while the good mothers are happily engaged in 
the rear of the store, matching ribbons or select- 
ing hose. Then there is a hunting up of said 
mothers by officious well-wishers of the children, 
a hastening out from half-finished business in a 
disappointed frame of mind which sometimes 
turns to impatience with the tired, weeping babies. 

Again they are taken on long car-rides, because 
their poor mothers long for a holiday and dare 
not leave their charges at home. But the holiday 
prolongs itself far into the evening, and it is not 
uncommon for theater-goers returning home to 
see small children in the cars at midnight, stupe- 
fied with excitement and completely dead-beat. 
260 



RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

Even intelligent mothers, careful in most mat- 
ters, and sufficiently prosperous not to be under 
the necessity of continually dragging their little 
ones into their own business, under the pretense 
of affording them exercise, are undiscriminating 
in the matter of childish recreations. They are 
apt to fancy that merely being out-of-doors is 
wholesome enough, without any particular em- 
ployment being furnished for the energies the 
fresh air stimulates. But this is a mistake so far 
as children are concerned. Elderly people find 
some benefit in sitting on park benches reading 
newspapers, and even reclining with their hands 
folded, meditating. But meditation is not a 
youthful pastime. The children who are taken 
abroad and cast loose with nothing to do but 
saunter up and down, soon are in the mood even 
to make faces at the sun for being bright while 
they are dismal. I have never known a child for 
whom a simple walk, minus agreeable companion- 
ship, offered any attractions. The juvenile instinct 
for being out-of-doors, although strong, is not 
strong enough to make dullness without prefer- 
able to some chance of amusement and the pres- 
ence of toys indoors. 

But add to the pleasure of fresh air the prospect 
of congenial society, and some sort of game or 
261 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

frolic, and the uninterested child quickly becomes 
another being, all sparkle and animation. Con- 
trast the little one playing ball with a small com- 
rade, every muscle and faculty in motion, and 
laughter and shouting making a sweet accompani- 
ment to his exercise, with some other looking 
broodingly on from the seclusion of a seat shared 
with his mother or nurse whose occupation is to 
take care of his nice clothes! 

It is certain that young people need something 
besides outdoor sauntering to keep them well. 
They want that kind of occupation which shall 
drive the blood to racing through their veins in 
lively currents, and set their eyes to dancing with 
the sensation of wholesome enjoyment. What 
does a child care for the benefits to his health 
gained by exercise? But he cares much for 
pleasure, because he is inexperienced enough to 
imagine that that is what we are here for, and that 
one has a right to complain if he does not get it. 
There comes a time when we reconcile ourselves 
to our tasks and look upon the occasional enjoy- 
ments which fall to our lot as a boon. Probably 
they are associated, then, with the artificial side 
of our civilization, and effectually divorced from 
the life of instinct. It would be well if, before we 
pass into this sere and yellow leaf, we had formed 



262 






RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

the habit of yielding ourselves up to that impulse 
for simple frolicking which makes itself felt in 
childhood, but passes all too quickly. 

Young people who have not known the joy of 
natural recreations become bookworms or so- 
ciety-dolls at an early age. They expend their 
energies in getting little accomplishments, and in 
their congested heads egotism grows apace. 
Nothing keeps down egotism like leg and arm 
exercise accompanied by the pleasant satire of 
young companions. Sports which demand agility 
and quick wit give the mind occupation enough to 
prevent its preying upon itself. And it is notice- 
able that persons who spend a proper proportion 
of their time in rational games are comparatively 
modest and good humored: an incidental result 
which is quite as important to health as muscular 
exertion. 

Our modern philosophy has swung so far 
around from that mediaeval asceticism which 
ignored the body and exalted the soul, that we 
take too little account of the worth of fine mental 
poise. Not mere intellectual development, which 
is preached sufficiently, indeed; but the balance 
and adjustment of all the forces belonging to one's 
personality; so that he shall be neither all animal, 
all vegetable, nor all learning, but a right propor- 
263 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

tion of the elements. In an harmonious, symmet- 
rical character there is no faculty starved and no 
sense bloated, and in the regularity of its course 
there is no need to repeat Shakespere's sarcastic 
warning against sensuality: 

' ' The mind shall banquet though the body pine ; 
Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits 
Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits." 

Nevertheless, there is danger of another kind 
of starvation in our latter-day zeal for bodily exer- 
cise. A certain aridness of heart is to be discerned 
where perspiration is forcibly produced, as if con- 
sideration of one's liver were the weighty circum- 
stance of the world. If we must goad ourselves 
by the spur of health-seeking into those outdoor 
canters which are easy to other creatures than 
man, let us not tear away the glamor of delight 
that shines over all bodily activities in the eyes of 
our unsophisticated children. They will get a 
thousand times more good even from the trapeze 
in the gymnasium if we do not suggest that the 
thing is a medicament. They need the stimulus 
to nerves and muscles of alternate exertion and 
satisfaction in repose; such stimulus as never 
comes from any kind of work, however healthful, 
but plays constantly, like summer lightning, over 
those active pastimes which gratify the social in- 
stinct while fulfilling the need of motion. 
264 



RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

Outdoor games are of all things the best form 
of exercise, because the idea of taking exercise 
is lost in the sense of pleasure. That was an illogi- 
cal father who, seeing his young daughter flushed 
and panting after an exciting game of croquet, 
said to her sarcastically, " You'd think it a great 
hardship if you'd been asked to tire yourself as 
much using a broom." Naturally, work is work, 
and the conscientious mind submits to the neces- 
sity of engaging in it. But what earthly autocrat 
is justified in denying to any one of us the delight 
of play? How much spleen would float down the 
bitter salt sea if all of us, old and young, realized 
the necessity and promptly went in for a regular 
allowance of exhilarating outdoor recreation. 

All winter indoors, all summer afield, said our 
Saxon forefathers, and if it was necessity which 
drove them from their houses amid the storms of 
January it was not from preference if they were 
ever led to seek their shelter during June. The 
ideal is to live out-of-doors as much as possible, 
and to consider a house in summer as simply a 
place to sleep in. Even robust persons need to 
be very careful about sleeping out-of-doors. The 
changes of our climate are so sudden and rapid 
that within the space of an hour a sleeping person 
may pass from a very high bodily temperature to 
265 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

a chill. A friend of mine, a strong, robust man, 
and a doctor, by the way, fell asleep in a ham- 
mock in his back garden, one June afternoon, 
caught cold, and within six months died of rapid 
consumption. 

Frightful risks are taken constantly by little 
children who throw themselves at full length on 
damp grass, and lie there, idly, while malaria 
creeps slowly and surely upon them. So long as 
one is exercising he may brave dampness and 
cold, or even hot sunshine, if his digestion is in 
good order. But when exercise ceases and re- 
laxation begins, one must be heedful of all the 
" skyey influences " and earthy miasmas. More 
especially if considerable of one's blood is being 
sent each hour to the head for mental activity. 
The brighter and more precocious our child the 
more careful must we be not to expose him to 
dangers through which children with more of the 
animal about them and fewer nerves would pass 
scatheless. The children of the poor who are 
tumbled into the streets early in the morning and 
not recalled till late at night survive privations 
and disasters that would kill children of finer or- 
ganization. They divert from their brains to 
their extremities every particle of nourishment 
266 



RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

they can get, and in order to keep from freezing 
or fainting they must refrain from thinking. 

We, however, who are able to give our children 
all the requisites of a comfortable maintenance 
ask more for them than the mere capacity to sur- 
vive. We wish them to be strong, healthy, hand- 
some, wide-awake, and intelligent, with every 
faculty sound. And to this end we must be vigi- 
lant, not carelessly sending them out into the 
streets, badly prepared to breast all the shocks of 
temperature they are likely to encounter. Noth- 
ing is more absurd than to say that such and such 
a thing is wholesome, therefore it is good for all 
children. Some children are constitutionally weak 
in one way, while strong in others; one may be 
proof against sun-heat but made ill by dampness, 
while another can wade in puddles half the day 
without taking any harm but falls sick under ex- 
posure to the fervid midday sunshine. So far 
from being all alike, no two children are physically 
similar. Even twins show such radical dissimi- 
larities that they require altogether different 
treatment. Nature is the greatest aristocrat in 
the universe. It is not for us, her minions, to dis- 
pute her ideas. We should seek to understand 
the kind of product she has turned out in the case 
267 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

of each child and minister to its necessities as well 
as we can. 

There are a few, very few, general rules that 
seem to have a general bearing. One is, that a 
certain interval of time should elapse between eat- 
ing and exercising, but the length of the period 
varies with the kind of food eaten, and with in- 
dividual digestions. The more liquid the food the 
quicker it is digested, but some apparently weighty 
solids are absorbed sooner than others having 
the aspect of heaviness. It has always been a 
marvel to me why little children have a natural 
propensity to be frisky and lively just after a meal. 
If activity is hurtful then, why should not instinct 
warn them to keep still? It does not, however, 
and herein we must interpose our own experi- 
ence in their behalf. Some pleasant, quiet pas- 
time must be devised to amuse them for a little 
while after breakfast and dinner, until the habit 
of such consideration for their digestion is formed. 

In one family of my acquaintance the children 
always feed the birds immediately after their own 
meals; which seems to me to be an admirable plan. 
One of the quickest ways to make a boisterous 
child quiet is to set him to feeding his pets. This 
occupation seems to have a fascination for the 
roughest men. and in Central Park, where there 
268 



RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

is quite an army of tame squirrels, one may see 
every here and there a motley group assembled 
to watch the coaxing of one of the scary little 
creatures toward the nuts some one holds out 
within his eager gaze. 

Strange that the instinct for hunting and kill- 
ing these same pretty creatures should be so 
strong, when they are not protected by law. 
Within this park, where it has become a habit with 
every one to pet the squirrels and robins, I have 
never seen a single urchin throw a stone; while his 
country cousin considers every feathered and 
furred creature the natural prey of his gun and 
sling. Does not this show that the sporting in- 
stinct is a savage, primitive feeling, which may be 
useful to man's lower wants but is not elevating 
to his moral nature? If it develops bravery, keen- 
ness, and quickness of perception, it also encour- 
ages the harsher side of egotism. Let one become 
even a hunter of reptiles, an annihilator of swarm- 
ing insects, and there grows up within him a 
hardihood in the face of suffering, a gradual indif- 
ference to the fate of all low forms of life. The 
capacity to kill animals coolly and indifferently is 
the precursor of hard-heartedness toward human 
beings. Therefore, it is advisable not to shock a 
child's native sensibility by letting him see scenes 
269 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

of bloodshed, even in the farm-yard. If the time 
arrives when it becomes his duty to assist in the 
necessary sacrifice of animals for the good of man- 
kind, he will not enter upon the task more clumsily 
for a determination to reduce all suffering to the 
minimum. 

It is certain that outdoor games and pastimes 
which are humane, not war-like, furnish the ideal 
recreation not only for the young, but for the 
elderly. Besides the personal sensation of pleasure 
there should be, even for the best results to one- 
self, an exaltation of one's feelings, an involun- 
tary pouring forth of the whole nature in a sort 
of sympathetic response to the pleasure of others. 
Recreations selfishly pursued contain the same 
canker at the root that every selfish occupation 
contains. The only pure and positive enjoyment 
possible to a human soul comes when it loses 
sight of itself in contributing to the enjoyment of 
others. And any occupation, any recreation in 
which there is not present at least the possibility 
of this feeling, if circumstances awaken it, is really 
joyless: as mechanical as task-work and of as little 
benefit to the whole nature. 

If the great object of life were simply to get 
large muscles, any dull exercise would serve our 
purpose. But the excessive cultivation of our 
270 



RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

bodily powers accomplishes little for that subtle 
element we call vitality. Great athletes break 
clown unexpectedly, and giants who have accus- 
tomed themselves to perform astounding feats 
suddenly manifest a lack of stamina and endur- 
ance under novel circumstances which sufficiently 
proves the mistake of a one-sided development. 
Sound health implies not only bodily strength but 
the poise and sanity of all those elements within 
us which inspire the body with life. We are not 
really happy whatever we have to make us so, un- 
less we are deeply conscious of it. We are not 
securely strong and well unless we feel, bubbling 
up in our veins, the joy of life. How pleasant it 
would be if people should continually speak of the 
bright things they know; if they shared their 
happy secrets, and expanded in their pleasures 
even as the miserable are wont to unburden them- 
selves in their pain! The world needs more sweet- 
ness in its air, more rejoicing, more acclaim. If 
there was generally diffused all about us this 
moral atmosphere of joyous health, it would be 
rapture merely to breathe it in. There is a curious 
reserve in people concerning their good fortune. 
They seem to be superstitious about speaking of 
it. Sometimes they are afraid to say they are well 
lest they should fall sick. But nature is not so 
271 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

petty as this would indicate. Our best blessings 
will not fly from us because we express pleasure in 
them. Childhood is nearer to nature than we, for 
it breathes forth in song and in laughter the feel- 
ing of exhuberance which it is the habit of adults 
to suppress — and so to kill. That person inspires 
me with horror who puts a stop to the cheery 
shouts and laughter of children when they are 
playing on the field beneath his window. If he 
cannot get himself to sympathize with the sweet- 
est noise earth knows, let him go into a closet and 
shut the door. Pray let the young people shout, 
sing, and laugh as loudly as they wish, nor dream 
of hushing them — unless their merriment turns to 
quarrelling. Then, indeed, it is time to interpose. 
Games into which the spirit of rivalry enters are 
likely to stimulate ill will between good comrades 
unless their training has imbued them with that 
altruism which a few rare natures exhibit beauti- 
fully and gracefully. I have seen some children 
play " tether-ball " and croquet with such an 
amiable obligingness toward one another, that it 
amused an on-looker to speculate as to which one 
would be able to win from his generous friend. 
One of my own children cannot bring herself to 
take advantage of chances to win games when 
playing with me, although she is so high-spirited 
272 



RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

and ambitious that if she were engaged against a 
fiercer opponent there is little doubt but she 
would resolutely hold her own. 

To be eager in a game, yet good humored if 
defeated, is to have an enviably well-balanced dis- 
position. But some parents are so silly as to think 
it a mark of high spirit in a child to always be 
ready for a fight over a disputed point, and they 
encourage belligerency. A man of considerable 
culture (I am happy to say, not an American) was 
heard threatening his small son with chastisement 
if he did not strike another boy who was rallying 
him. English people consider it a test of charac- 
ter to be able to shake hands with a fellow who 
has just knocked you down. Just exactly where 
this complacency passes into subserviency is per- 
haps a curious question. Among people who 
fight about every trifle there must, of course, be 
an easy making up. But it would seem a better 
way to rear a lad to be self-controlled, with the 
good sense to distinguish play from earnest, so 
that he should not be led into the folly of getting 
his blood heated in mimic battles. Then, if the oc- 
casion ever does arrive when he must fight to vin- 
dicate a good cause, he may be recommended to 
take the advice of T. B. Aldrich, who says: 
" Fighting is ungentlemanly and unmanly; but if 
273 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

you must fight, don't give in as long as you can 
stand and see! " 

Fisticuffs is not regarded, from the modern 
standpoint, as legitimate exercise. Whether box- 
ing is justifiable — whether any muscular exercise 
which reacts upon the disposition and encourages 
bullying is to continue after civilization has arisen 
a little higher — is a question which the sterner 
sex must settle for themselves. But so far as the 
influence of mothers extends, we will make no 
mistake in training our boys as well as our girls 
to take both duty and pleasure with sweet reason- 
ableness; putting forth their energies with ra- 
tional zeal, but not entering into anything with 
the frightful intensity which makes one a prey to 
the chances of the hour, and exaggerates a little 
disappointment into a matter for despair. 

The child who goes into play as if it was the 
last thing he expected to ever be able to enjoy, 
does himself a serious injury. There should al- 
ways be a certain insouciance in childhood; a dispo- 
sition to accept enjoyment rather than to snatch 
it hungrily. The child whose attitude toward life 
is confidently hopeful has this facility to change 
from one pleasure to another, sure that every- 
thing has some attraction of its own. By way of 
encouraging such good nature we should intro- 
274 



RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

duce sufficient variety into our little ones' lives 
to prevent an obstinate preference for any one es- 
pecial pleasure. A special diversion, continually 
pursued, soon enslaves us; fastening upon con- 
sciousness like a nightmare so that it becomes im- 
possible to free oneself from it, even after it has 
grown wearisome. Hence, it is sensible to sup- 
ply to the child a variety of toys, and to teach 
him new games every little while. Take him oc- 
casionally into new scenes, and show him how dif- 
ferent people live and enjoy themselves. Let him 
learn that every pastime human beings engage in 
has its reason for being in their nationality, their 
grade of culture and their dispositions. He will 
thus imbibe from observation a tolerant spirit 
toward that with which he cannot personally sym- 
pathize; learning that it is neither possible nor de- 
sirable for everybody to be like himself. 

Bigotry and intolerance are among the most 
serious vices of childhood, and they greatly inter- 
fere with that serenity and equipoise which it is 
essential to acquire early in life if we are to keep 
well and sane. But I really believe that these fires 
which so often consume the youthful heart are 
mostly kindled by careless words which fall from 
parents. A little one overhears an unfriendly 
comment upon some one and straightway builds 
275 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

upon it a whole philosophy of animadversion. He 
will refuse to play with a child whose parents have 
been strictured by his own, and his fancy harps 
persistently upon some unhappy trait in a com- 
rade which has once been brought to his notice. 
We must be careful not to warp and prejudice the 
spirit of our children, nor tear away the pretty 
illusions natural to their age. In many respects 
the social life of childhood needs reconstruction: 
and it consists largely in the withdrawing of ob- 
trusive adult policies and influence. 

The unfettered social instinct of a child leads 
him straight toward what is true and profitable. 
A comrade is liked for his disposition, a friend is 
chosen for his character; and conventional con- 
siderations are not admitted. We will do well, 
while exercising a rigid surveillance over our chil- 
dren's social existence, to maintain a discreet 
silence concerning many things we imagine we 
understand. It is not possible to have companions 
for our children constructed to our order, and 
we must waive some preferences in view of general 
advantages. 

Children must have the society of other chil- 
dren. Not all the time; but frequently. Nothing 
better promotes health and sanity than social in- 
tercourse under wholesome conditions. The re- 
276 



RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

cluse is like a solitary house standing on an ex- 
posed hill; destruction is only a question of time. 
But nobody can say how long a block of sound 
buildings, closely hugging one another, will last. 
In the inorganic world and also in the organic, 
prolongation of existence is the holding together 
of different things. Adults are brought into com- 
munication by the innumerable exigencies of busi- 
ness, and they usually manage to intersperse a 
little social enjoyment into these affairs. But 
children commonly seek each other from the pure 
impulse of the social instinct. Enjoyment is their 
one aim. Together, they can devise a thousand 
and one ways of getting pleasure out of the pass- 
ing hour, which one could neither think of nor 
carry out alone. What great plans they form, and 
into what simple frolics do they devolve! A paper 
crown and a flag and drum are the materials for 
a May party; a few buns on the lawn furnishes 
forth a picnic. If one is only blessed with a large 
tree in a back yard the children of the family have 
endless recreation always within call. Let a seat 
be fastened among the midmost branches, and 
allow the little ones to climb up just as soon as 
they are able to do so. If a mother is too timid 
to stand the sight of her youngsters risking their 
limbs, she can carefully lay a mattress beneath the 
277 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

tree for them to fall upon. But I fancy that a few 
days of this business will make her more stoical. 

There is no pastime, especially out-of-doors, 
that is exempt from danger. To be sure, nature 
supplies a sort of feather bed for the little ones, 
in the velvety grass. But they perversely prefer 
hard earth, for the most part, as being easier to 
run on. It is regrettable that there are mothers 
whose bump of common sense is so small that 
they habitually keep their children from this most 
natural exercise. Or, at least, they try. There 
are some things beyond parental legislation, and 
among them the privilege of the young to run, to 
jump, and to breathe. 

Leaping is an exertion in which the little ones 
usually find immense enjoyment. Recently I had 
the privilege of looking on at a delightful lawn 
party given by a genial teacher to her little 
pupils. It was charming to see the abandonment 
with which they gave themselves up to the spirit 
of the occasion; gamboling and frisking like so 
many kittens, until their cheeks grew rosy and 
their eyes bright as stars. There were no set 
games, only perfect freedom and good-humored 
frolicing. 

Older children would necessarily have had aim 

and consistency in their holiday. After the first 

278 



RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 

period of infantile effervescence of mere animal 
spirits, there enters into our enjoyments either an 
emotional or an intellectual element. All games 
involve more or less of the last, while of the first, 
dancing is probably the best representative. Out- 
door dancing is one of the most delightful of all 
recreations. But in summer a little of it is suffi- 
cient, for it is essentially a cool-weather pleasure, 
in our climate. In the winter every family would 
do well to make dancing a regular feature of social 
life. Given a good-sized room, with floor either 
bare or covered with drugget, a few flowers for 
beauty's sake, a few cakes and lemonade for crea- 
ture comfort, and some musical instrument, and 
we have everything necessary for a charming 
evening. Young persons who are accustomed to 
agreeable, informal entertainments at home, do 
not grow up with a craving for excitement, and 
an unhealthy love of pleasure. They comprehend 
perfectly that pleasure has its proper place in life, 
but that it should go hand in hand with duty. It 
is judicious to accustom children to exert them- 
selves somewhat in preparing for their enjoy- 
ments. Let the young daughter set the parlor in 
order and make trie cake for her little festivity, 
and let all the members of the family be made to 
feel a sense of personal responsibility in making 
279 



THE CHILDREN'S HEALTH 

the afternoon or evening pass agreeably for their 
guests. The art of entertaining with ease and 
grace is one which every child should learn, and 
it is well to allow our little ones to have visitors 
and to pay visits that they may early become ac- 
customed to those social amenities which are dif- 
ficult when not practiced in youth. 

I would by no means suggest an initiation into 
the artificialities prevalent in the maturer social 
world. These are as inimical to soundness of 
health and brain, as simple, natural social pleas- 
ures are wholesome. In everything let childhood 
be honest, simple, unaffected. Let it live out its 
right instincts for freedom, ease, rational enjoy- 
ments, and complete development. But while we 
employ every effort to surround our child with 
the appliances of wholesome culture, we must not 
fail to imbue him with a deep interest in and feel- 
ing of fellowship with the rest of the world. To 
keep oneself well and happy is a good thing; but 
one must not stop there. It is equally a duty to 
help on the health and happiness of our fellow 
creatures, for however important our individual 
welfare seems to us, each one is but a wee, wee 
item of universal humanity. And nature mothers 
the whole. 

280 



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FROM THE CHILD'S STANDPOINT. Studies of 
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Florence Hull Winterburn. i2mo, cloth, with a por- 
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This book is a collection of studies of child-nature and 
child-life, written with that sympathetic insight into the 
heart of childhood for which this author is so justly noted. 

"Of more service as interpreter of children's natures than 
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mothers. " — Literary World. 

"What we all know, but what no one ever said so well 
before. Abounds in wholesome truths. " — Journal of Education. 

"A point which both parents and teachers need to have 
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" Suggestive: present a new view of the ethical relations'of 
parents and children." — The Outlook. 

" Singularly luminous studies. Child study humanized." — 
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" Cannot be commended too highly." — Living Church. 

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The nursery ethics of Mrs. Winterburn are the combined re- 
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dealings with children." — Boston Ideas. 

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not theorize, but treats the matter from a practical standpoint 
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would be a vast improvement on any one which has preceded 
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the best social beings. The presentation is animated, 
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THE GENTLE ART OF PLEASING. By Elizabeth 

Glover. 16mo, cloth decorated, gilt top, $1.00. 

The author writes with genuine sympathy and insight into the 
minds and hearts of young people, and pleases while she teaches 
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i Oct 28 1003 



OCT 17 1901 



